By Devin Heroux
When Brad Jacobs and his fist-pumping, broom-slapping and “fitness freak” Northern Ontario foursome burst onto the scene with a Brier win in 2013, the curling world took notice.
And there were many traditionalists who didn't like it.
Jacobs, Ryan Fry, and the Harnden brothers were built, brash, and unapologetic about how they played the game. They didn’t look like curlers, at least the stereotype of how a curler should look. And they certainly didn’t act like it. They were emotional, loud, and when they made a good shot, everyone on the ice and in the crowd knew it.
The team’s stretch from the 2013 Brier win, to their pre-trials win, and then a trials victory that eventually led to Olympic gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics was one of the great curling runs in the history of the sport.
When Jacobs and company were on, nobody in the world could beat them. They represented a new wave of curling. In a lot of ways, Jacobs and his team would create a new blueprint for what it meant to be a curler at the highest level.
For as good as those two years were and for as quickly as that all winning arrived, it just as quickly disappeared.
The team would go on to lose countless big moment games in the years that followed. They just couldn’t break through after that.
It took Jacobs 11 years to get back to the pinnacle of curling in Canada with an entirely new team. Alongside Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert, Jacobs guided his team to a Brier win this past March in Kelowna, B.C.
It was his second Brier title, a sweet victory for Jacobs, who wondered if it would ever happen again.
Now he wants a second Olympic title.
Jacobs was 29 years old when he rose to superstardom with Olympic gold in 2014. In June, the veteran skip turned 40 years old.
Speaking to John Cullen on the latest episode of The Broom Brothers podcast, Jacobs opened up about being named one of the first-ever Rock League captains, shared some personal news about a couple of surgeries he’s undergone in the last number of weeks, and talked about how he’s approaching this monumental year of curling ahead.
“I'm old now. I feel like in the past I've put a lot of pressure on myself for these trials,” Jacobs told Cullen on the podcast.
“I think it's important to not put too much pressure on yourself in these years that we know are big years. I actually think it's good to kind of go the opposite way and just stay loose, keep training, keep working hard. Don't put that event on too much of a pedestal, because I think that that'll actually hurt you mentally. It's just another bonspiel.
"Just have to keep training, keep working hard, try to keep up with the young guys, try to stay injury-free and healthy.”
Staying healthy has proved to be a bit of a challenge of late for Jacobs. At the TCG All-Star Game in Nashville this past April, Jacobs pulled his groin while riding a mechanical bull.
He can laugh about it now, but it’s taken some time to recover fully.
“I'm never riding a mechanical bull ever again, no matter how badly people want me to ride, it's never happening. I'm doing a lot better. It's still lingering a little bit on the left side, but it’s starting to feel better,” Jacobs said.
About a week after the mechanical bull incident, Jacobs says he underwent hernia surgery. And about six weeks after that, Jacobs then got a vasectomy.
“Everything has been in the groin area for me, which is not a lot of fun, but we're bouncing back, we're healing. We're being resilient here, and I'm starting to feel better, starting to lift some weights again,” he said.
It would seem that, with all the talk of injury and surgery, Jacobs might be contemplating the end of his career. He did, after all, take a year off at the beginning of this quad.
Let’s be clear, though: Jacobs never once used the term retirement. And he’s not considering it anytime soon either.
“It's probably crossed the minds of a few players, though. I don't think I'm quite there yet. I can see myself, God willing, my health is good, and everything. I could see myself going another quad after this one,” he said.
“Beyond that, I really don't know. So, for me, it's like the next five seasons. I look forward to hopefully being on a great men's team and still going after that a whole bunch more times and, you know, we've got two more shots at the Olympics, as well as playing in Rock League. So hopefully it’s an exciting five years.”
As for that brash swagger, it’s still there. It’s a part of Jacobs’ DNA. For years, he has wanted curling to evolve into a place where fans are rowdy and fully engaged in the game, even heckling the curlers.
Jacobs feels that the sport is on the precipice of becoming what he has always imagined it to be.
And he got a real taste of it this past December in St. John’s, N.L., during the Grand Slam of Curling’s KIOTI National.
Jacobs was taking on hometown favourite Team Gushue in the quarterfinals, in front of a packed arena where the overwhelming majority cheered for Gushue.
With the score 5-4 in the seventh end, Jacobs opted to concede a point to tie the game but retain the hammer heading to the final end. The capacity crowd rained down boos on Jacobs.
Jacobs waved his hands in the error and basked in the electric atmosphere. He smiled, laughed and soaked it all in.
The skip from The Soo is sensing that maybe, just maybe, what he wanted for the sport for years is now coming to fruition — that includes the announcement of the first-ever pro curling league.
“I've heard in the past they tried to do a professional curling league. That was before our time, though, and I really know nothing about that, but they tried to execute on that, and it didn't work out. But everything that they (TCG) are saying they're going do, they're doing,” Jacobs said.
“I just love that. They're putting their money where their mouth is, they're following through on everything. Everything that's going on in the summer around curling, this is the first time I feel like there's still a presence, especially on social media, with curling. And it's really neat.”
Jacobs says he’s honoured to have been named one of the six Rock League captains for the pro curling league set to begin this upcoming April.
“This is the very start of it, right? And to play a part in something revolutionary on the ground floor, we're right at the beginning, I think, is really special. We're going to hopefully pave the way for younger generations to be able to play professional curling full time, and we're going to be the ones who started that,” he said.
"Being placed in the group of the other five captains, I thought, was really neat. I'm going to do the best job that I can to help lead and captain our team and entertain the fans. That’s what it's all about.”
In a lot of ways, this has all been a curling renaissance for Jacobs. His evolution on and off the ice has been marvelled at by players and fans alike. And now he finds himself at the forefront of ushering the sport into this next chapter.
It has Jacobs thinking deeply about the type of leader he wants to be for his team when Rock League starts.
“I think having a servant mentality, that you're going to serve your team, your players, and knowing that they can respect you, that they can trust you, that you have their back no matter what,” Jacobs said.
“I think those are some characteristics that make up a good leader, from at least my perspective. I like people who are on my team to know that I care about them and that I would run through a brick wall for them. And that goes a long way, and it's reciprocated back from the teammates, from my teammates, back to me. I think that you can grow a strong team that way.”
It’s what Jacobs says his current team has built — a group of men who hold each other accountable, care deeply about each other and being great, and are not afraid of having tough conversations.
In a lot of ways, it’s not unlike what he was able to build in 2013. With a new lineup, Jacobs and company found chemistry quickly and won the Brier and then Olympic gold.
And with a new lineup in 2024, they found chemistry quickly and won the Brier. Now he’s trying to run it back at the Olympics once again.
“Can we do it? I believe we can, and it's just great to have a really good shot. So, we'll see what happens,” he said.
“Am I a believer in fate? I mean, I don't know. I think other people around me in my close circle are more believers of fate. Especially my wife. We’ll give it our best shot.”
