![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Nichols_Paula-e1667487272716.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\tTHE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darren Calabrese<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNovember 28, 2025\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Sharing](\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/wp-content\/themes\/canadianolympiccommittee\/img\/team-canada-icons\/team-canada-profile-share-red.svg\")
<\/p>\n
The first game of the men\u2019s final at the Canadian Curling Trials in Halifax was an interesting one, to say the least.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end, it was Team Jacobs\u2014with skip Brad Jacobs<\/a>, third Marc Kennedy<\/a>, second Brett Gallant<\/a>, and lead Ben Hebert<\/a>\u2014who struck first in the best-of-three final, coming away with the 9-8 win over Team Dunstone (skip Matt Dunstone, third Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden<\/a>, lead Ryan Harnden<\/a>).\u00a0They\u2019re now one win away from qualifying for the Milano Cortina 2026<\/a> Olympic Winter Games. <\/p>\n Jacobs began the game with the hammer, but a perfect hit and roll by Dunstone forced Jacobs to draw for a single in the opening end. Jacobs went up 3-0 after two ends when Dunstone\u2019s attempted draw to the button was heavy, giving away the steal of two.<\/p>\n Dunstone didn\u2019t let that disappointment get to him, responding in the third end to score two and cut the lead to one. Jacobs came right back with a soft tap to score two of his own to take a 5-2 lead into the fifth.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the last end before the break, Jacobs had a huge miss on a runback attempt, allowing Dunstone the opportunity to draw for four, which he did to take the 6-5 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n The mistakes continued in the sixth, first by Dunstone and then by Jacobs, who saw their rock sail right through the house. Jacobs was left with a chance to score two, which he did to go back in front 7-6.\u00a0<\/p>\n After blanking the seventh end, Dunstone retained the hammer into the eighth. Facing four Jacobs\u2019 stones, Lott cleared three of them from the house. That helped set up a double takeout for Dunstone, leading to another blanked end.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the ninth, Jacobs was looking for a double takeout with his last rock, but after making one hit, his shooter rolled just wide of the second target, leaving Dunstone with an open draw for two and a one point lead heading into the 10th end, in which Jacobs would have the hammer.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the house looking a little busy, Kennedy broke it up with some big weight, which left Jacobs lying two with just the skip stones to come. Dunstone wrecked on a guard with his first shot of the end. Jacobs then attempted to get a third stone in position to count, but came up a little short on his draw. With his last throw, Dunstone missed his takeout attempt and the rock rolled right through the house, giving Jacobs two points for win without having to take his last shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n The second game of the men\u2019s final will take place at 6:00 p.m. ET on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darren Calabrese November 28, 2025 The first game of the men\u2019s final at the Canadian Curling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[109036,109037,109038,49,48,139706,139707,109039,139708,109043,139709,44,139710],"class_list":["post-313584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ben-hebert","tag-brad-jacobs","tag-brett-gallant","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-curling-trials","tag-colton-lott","tag-curling","tag-ej-harnden","tag-marc-kennedy","tag-matt-dunstone","tag-news","tag-ryan-harnden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/CP175393813.jpg\")
Team Jacobs skip Brad Jacobs, right, watches a shot from the house in front of Team Dunstone skip Matt Dunstone during Canadian Olympic curling trials finals action in Halifax on Friday, November 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darren Calabrese<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/CP175393810.jpg\")
Team Dunstone skip Matt Dunstone, right, sweeps a stone in the house in front of Team Jacobs skip Brad Jacobs, second from right, during Canadian Olympic curling trials finals action in Halifax on Friday, November 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darren Calabrese<\/p>\n