CORTINA D’AMPEZZO — When Canada’s Brad Jacobs saw Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat in the interview area at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium on Thursday night, he walked over to give him a celebratory hug.
They had both pulled out tight semifinal victories after a draining nine-game round-robin. Jacobs outlasted Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell 5-4 in an extra end while Mouat advanced with an 8-5 win over Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller.
The results set up a Saturday showdown between a veteran Canadian side and the best foursome from curling’s new generation.
“They’re the No. 1 team in the world for a reason,” Jacobs said. “So (we’re) looking forward to that, another battle against the best team in the world, two heavyweight teams going at it.”
It has been a long wait for the Calgary-based team of Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert.
Kennedy and Hebert were last in an Olympic final in 2010, when they won gold at the Vancouver Games. They lost the semifinal when they returned to the Olympics eight years later in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Jacobs won gold in 2014 in Sochi, Russia while Gallant took bronze in 2022 at Beijing.
“It says a lot about the determination they have to get here again,” said Canadian coach Paul Webster.
The plucky Norwegian side refused to buckle in a low-scoring affair. Ramsfjell scored the lone deuce of the game in the 10th end but Jacobs used hammer in the 11th to win it.
It set off a celebration by the Canadian bench as players pumped their fists and hugged on the ice.
“I play for them and we play for each other,” Jacobs said. “To see the look on their faces after we won is the reason I play.”
Both teams made some uncharacteristic errors over the first couple ends. Norway took advantage to sit three in the second to force Jacobs to draw for one.
Canada strengthened its rock positioning and started to find more consistency with precision shots. Jacobs picked out a stone with his last shot of the third to force Ramsfjell to make a draw against three.
Up 2-1 after five ends, Jacobs made a mistake by nosing a hit-and-run attempt and Norway forced him to a single.
Ramsfjell was building for a multi-point end in the eighth but Jacobs made a pistol to flip the momentum. His gentle tick and roll forced Ramsfjell to settle for a single.
“The guy is an animal,” Hebert said of his skip. “Brad Jacobs is a killer. He’s been carrying us for two years.”
The Canada clock was down to 8.7 seconds when Jacobs released his final throw of the 10th end, a double-takeout attempt that left Norway sitting one. Ramsfjell made the open draw to force the extra end.
Canada shot 88 per cent on the night to 79 per cent for Norway.
“That’s one for the experience, for sure,” Ramsfjell said, who will play Switzerland for bronze on Friday. “I felt like we played a good game, and the next time we’ll get it.”
The 31-year-old Mouat settled for Olympic silver in the Beijing final, falling to Sweden’s Niklas Edin. His teammates are also in their early 30s, with the exception of 29-year-old second Bobby Lammie.
Gallant is the youngest player on the Canadian side at 36. His teammates are in their early 40s.
“They’re relieved, they’re excited, they are exhausted, they are beyond,” Webster said.
Mouat was a youngster trying to break through when Jacobs became the last Canadian skip to win men’s Olympic gold. He credited him for changing the sport “in terms of being athletic and being professional.”
“They’ve done a lot for our sport so I’ve always looked up to Brad, (he’s) an incredible person just to be around,” Mouat said. “He’s taught me a lot about the game.
“It just feels like a pretty special moment for us to have that kind of (post-game) embrace, and just to go out and battle on Saturday.”
Canada defeated Great Britain 9-5 in round-robin play. The victory came as a double-touching controversy was dying down after a wild weekend.
Kennedy had a viral moment with a profanity-laced reply to Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson, who accused the Canadians of touching the stones a second time after releasing the handle. It led to World Curling adjusting its umpire setup before backtracking a day later.
The double-touching subject became one of the buzzier stories of the Games and created headlines around the world.
“People don’t really have an idea what the guys had to go through and (what I) had to go through this week,” Kennedy said. “So to fight through that, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to fight as hard as we did, to get through what we did and then be here now, it’s a pretty incredible story.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2026.
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
