Jacobs starts strong at Brier

For Brad Jacobs and his Northern Ontario teammates, their start to the 2019 Tim Hortons Brier in Brandon, Man. was about as good as it could have been.

The Jacobs rink, which included third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden and fifth Lee Toner, opened the nine-day event on Saturday with a 10-2 win in eight ends over Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton.

After blanking the opening end, Jacobs took a 3-0 lead in the second end before scoring three more to take a commanding 6-1 lead through five ends.

Leading 7-2, Jacobs capped off the night with three more in the eighth end.

“We got a good handle on the ice early,” Jacobs told Curling.ca. “Everything that we wanted to have happen ended up happening. Rocks were getting into the spots that we wanted. Everyone was throwing the rock well.”

Jacobs also said that work put in with Adam Kingsbury and Arthur Perlini has helped the mindset of the team at the event.

“This was probably one of the calmest Team Jacobs’ you’ve seen at any Brier,” Jacobs also said. “That can be reflected in the work we’ve done with Adam and Arthur a lot this year. We’ve come in with a great mindset and everybody is in a good headspace and it reflected in our play.”

Bottcher got into the Brier after winning a wild card game against John Epping of Toronto on Friday night.

The young skip said the ice conditions were “a little bit different” than what his team saw Friday night.

“We got a little tricked,” Bottcher said. “I felt the conditions were a bit different than they were yesterday, and it took us a couple of ends to get comfortable and even get comfortable with any sort of semblance of knowing what’s going to happen. And they didn’t give us a whole lot, especially after that early three.

“If ever there was a game where you were going to learn something and come away not too disappointed, losing to Brad Jacobs isn’t an awful one,” Bottcher added.

The Jacobs rink returns to action at 10 a.m. (eastern time) on Sunday morning against Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Symonds in the first of two games on the day for the Northern Ontario rink.

The team wraps up action on day two in the evening draw against Quebec’s Martin Crete at 8 p.m.

The Brier features 16 teams separated into two pools. Teams play a round robin of seven games with the top four teams in each advancing to the Championship Pool.

From there, teams will play four more games with the top four teams in the championship pool then advancing to the page playoff. The records will carry over from the initial round robin.

The page playoff is set for next Saturday with the final set for Sunday night.