By Jonathan Brazeau
MEDICINE HAT, Alta. — Jordon McDonald is a mechanical engineering student at the University of Manitoba, but the 23-year-old Winnipeg skip is also a student of the game.
McDonald appeared on The Curling Hotline podcast and talked about being a fan in the stands when Brad Jacobs won the 2013 trials and how the two-time Olympic gold medallist has been one of his role models and a bit of a mentor in recent years.
But the learner upended the master at the GSOC P&H Masters on Wednesday night in the preliminary round. McDonald scored two points in the eighth end to lift his team to a 7-5 victory over Jacobs's Calgary-based club.
"He's just got so much aura, I'm going to use a Gen Z term, but he's a legend in the game, and I respect him so much," McDonald said. "It's always super cool to play against him, and it honestly brings out the best in me.
"I've played quite well against him every time I've played him. It's just a lot of fun playing against your idol like that.”
McDonald took a 4-2 lead with a count of three points in the third end. The teams alternated singles in five and six, and Jacobs scored a deuce in seven to tie it up 5-5.
That gave McDonald the hammer coming home, and he fired a bullet with his last that hit all the right angles to dislodge Jacobs's shot stone.
Both teams are 1-1 at the halfway point of the preliminary round, although McDonald picked up the full three points in the standings for winning in regulation. Jacobs has two points from a 6-5 shootout win over Italy's Team Stefano Spiller.
"It feels amazing,” said McDonald, who lost 5-2 to Scotland's Team Grant Hardie on Tuesday. “We played great the first game, ran into a really hot team, and I think that game we played even better.
"It was super awesome to just kind of build on the last game, even though we lost, and play a super great game against a great team."
McDonald plays Scotland's Team Bruce Mouat on Thursday, with Jacobs taking on another Winnipeg-based crew, Team John Epping.
