The host team is standing tall at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.
It’s the 12 teams below Canada in the round-robin standings that have been rather unpredictable.
Brad Jacobs and his Calgary-based side of Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert improved to 8-1 in round-robin play Thursday with an 8-2 rout of China’s Xiaoming Xu.
“It’d be really nice to sneak into the 1-2 spot and finish this thing strong going into the playoffs,” Jacobs said. “And then just lay it all out there on the weekend. That would be fun.”
Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller (7-2) has also been in strong form. Ranked a whisker behind Jacobs at No. 4 in the world, Schwaller dumped Italy’s Joel Retornaz 8-3 to move into sole possession of second place.
China, a surprise contender this week, fell into a third-place tie with Scotland’s Bruce Mouat and Sweden’s Niklas Edin at 6-3.
Moose Jaw prepares to welcome the world for curling championships
Mouat’s side holds the No. 1 spot in the world rankings but has been inconsistent at the Temple Gardens Centre.
Scotland handed Canada its only loss but was also shelled earlier in the week by Czechia’s Lukas Klima and dropped a 10-4 decision to Sweden on Thursday.
Edin, meanwhile, appears to have overcome his traditional slow start at this nine-day event. The defending champion – who’s looking for a record eighth world title – seems to have loosened up as he deals with nagging back and shoulder issues.
At 5-4, Czechia and Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell remained in the playoff mix while American Korey Dropkin was hanging on at 4-4.
Among the disappointments, reigning European champion Marc Muskatewitz of Germany was 4-5, and the former world No. 1 Retornaz has struggled at 3-6.
Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (3-6), Austria’s Mathias Genner (1-8) and South Korea’s Hyojun Kim (0-9) rounded out the 13-team standings.
“There’s a couple teams that you would have thought would be near the top of the leaderboard at the start of this week that aren’t,” said Canada coach Paul Webster. “It’s not that they’re not playing the greatest, it’s just the other teams are (solid).
“I love it. The parity is something we need in all sport, and I’m happy it’s in curling.”
The Canadians, who were scheduled to play Switzerland in the evening draw, controlled their game in the morning session.
Canada jumped out to an early 4-1 lead and China conceded early after giving up a second straight steal in the seventh end.
“I think we came out with really good energy this morning, which is a little bit of a tough thing to do this late in the week,” Jacobs said. “But every time I think we can spare a few ends (it) saves our bodies and saves our minds a little bit, so that’s good.”
Canada used hammer to score an opening deuce and took advantage of some errors by the Chinese side to build the scoreline. Xu settled for a single in the second end when he was light on an open draw to the four-foot ring.
Jacobs made a mistake of his own when he stuffed a double-takeout attempt in the fifth end and was forced to one.
China couldn’t take advantage of last rock in the sixth as Xu’s final stone rolled out to give Canada a steal of two. Xu finished with a game-low shooting percentage of 73 per cent.
Round-robin play continues through Friday night. The top six teams will make the weekend playoffs.
Canada is looking to win gold at this event for the first time since Brad Gushue’s victory in 2017 in Edmonton.