We talk to Brett Gallant, Marc Kennedy and Brad Jacobs after their Draw 11 game at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.

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[Applause] uh well Brad Brad played awesome all the guys played awesome it was a pretty well curled game uh I had a couple maybe mistakes and uh the guys picked up for me really well and uh that’s what kind of our team’s all about if someone’s not making them all the other guys are picking up the slack and I thought they did a great job and we stayed positive throughout the whole time and big win well that was a key too is is the attitude cuz there’s a few brakes out there that went completely the wrong way and it never seemed to get you guys down yeah you know just a couple of half inch here or there and it was uh kind of went from real good to kind of ugly but yeah we just battled and um yeah we we managed managed the game really well you know we man wasn’t a high-scoring game but I thought we managed the board really well and then uh yeah always had that little edge if you and Mark have those safety shots again 50 times you think it would happen again like that it’s just some pretty bad breaks yeah pretty unlucky uh I mean we’re so sometimes you’re so close to making the shot and then you’re uh just a hair away from you know kind of a a big mistake and those are kind of those shots but um the way we’re playing we’re we’re going after everything like we’re trying to make everything and sometimes it’s just you live on the edge a little bit but uh yeah Cubsy’s been playing so good that we have the confidence to go after those shots when you have an anchor like Brad who’s playing the way that he is like what is the confidence level is it above 100% yeah it just it honestly it frees you up a little bit um you know you don’t have to be tentative there at all cuz you know that he’s really feeling it and um it just kind of manifests through the team when when he’s when he’s throwing that well so we’re all feeling pretty good about our games how would uh how would you describe that one from the uh outside it kind of just felt weird oh felt uh just felt like a really interesting game against a great team um they’ve played us hard the last couple years they’ve they were number one in the world that’s a team with a lot of firepower uh yeah there was some interesting results out there with some good throws and hey that’s curling i think it was entertaining for the fans and the people at home and um our skip played amazing again so and and a great shot to win it so um yeah that’s uh entertaining curling i you made a great shot in the sixth end and I was like I got to talk to Mark Kennedy about that shot and then in the seventh ended one yeah exactly right so like let’s talk about the one in the sixth first welcome to Welcome to High Level Curling man i uh I threw them both pretty good just uh you know the one in six I actually probably threw worse and got a little bit lucky we weren’t trying to get that one off the button but that’s the way it goes sometimes and then the one in seven I threw it good i probably missed it by uh you know quarter inch on that high guard and ended up getting rid of all mine but um I thought we stayed pretty patient even in that end just tried to give Brad a shot to score and we did and he made it so uh you know we’ve we’ve been around a long time we’ve had really messy ends work out and we’ve had really great ends that turn out like crap so you just you roll with the punches of curling and you uh you try to ride it out with a really hot skip right now and that’s what we’re trying to do well speaking of the hot skip 99% he shot today I would say it was probably 100 but uh otherwise you know still an anchor back there how key is that to to to the confidence level from the rest of the guys when you do make a mistake oh it just filters down the lineup everybody feels super confident we have all the belief in the world in him and that allows us to just focus on making our shots right we’re not worried about what our skip’s going to do because we know he’s going to be uh he’s going to be there for us making big shots and man he just he’s blown me away this year with what he’s done with this team and the level of play he’s reached and you know we’re we’re doing something right he’s he’s uh he’s in a good environment he feels comfortable and we’re just going to try to keep supporting him because we’re going to have some big tough games here take me through the the conversation that’s happening in the sixth or the seventh end you guys had a really long talk and then obviously at the timeout in the 10th trying to figure out you know what what do you guys do to try and you know obviously not let Italy score two there so take me through the you know the the conversation that’s going on there and in the one and seven or the one and 10 let’s start with seven seven was just let’s try to open up this foroot so you have a chance uh they made a bit of a mistake on Joel’s last one on the line call left us a chance to score brad made a great shot um that’s the conversation in seven how do we get a shot to score i don’t care how many yellows there are here how do we have a piece of the button so you can get a point uh conversation in 10 is you know again Brad made a great shot on his first one being shot rock in the back of the eight foot there is really important um and then yeah just try to minimize you know in that situation it’s how to make it so they can only get a two not three uh and that’s why you’re playing the double on Brad’s last cuz even if you miss it it’s it’s an extra end and you have last rock but um you know that’s an intern that Brad’s been throwing really well so glad he made it we didn’t have to go to an extra how important is it to grind out a win like that it didn’t come easy but boy you guys grinded it out you know Ben said um early on in that game might have even been before the game uh you know expect to be just kind of tied up hopefully we have hammer in 10 we know Italy’s really tough they’re a great team they they give everybody a great game all the time and um you know they’re not having the best week this week and that’s just kind of how it goes sometimes but uh we know that when they come out to play us we expect to get their best and we got a few misses there here and there tonight uh it was a little bit of a strange game um some of our misses that were the results turned out to be a little bit catastrophic but um the rocks were thrown really well and that’s just how it goes sometimes but we were able to stay positive bounce back make some good shots even when things didn’t look that great and grinded out the win the poise that was the thing tonight i mean nothing seemed to rattle you especially like you say some catastrophic outcomes that you didn’t maybe see but the team showed the poise yeah you got to stay you know keep things in perspective we were still up to playing the last end and um you know I think we’re just managing to stay loose here it’s it’s a roundroin game you know we you want to win that game and every single game in this roundroin is important uh but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if we lost that game it’s really nice to be 5 and one uh and to have won two games today against two really tough opponents um but you know there’s still so much curling left in this round Robin it’s actually kind of crazy it’s been a while since I’ve played around Robin this long so you know one game at a time one shot at a time patience and just continue to stay loose you look at the scoreboard and you see a one in seven and that doesn’t tell a full story of how important that one was how how big that turned out yeah got a pretty bad break on Mark’s run back i mean we hit that just a hair too thick and then all of a sudden all our rocks are gone they’re laying four and throwing a guard it was pretty unbelievable but um yeah I think uh honestly I think Italy had a few questionable calls that game that had they played a few different shots the outcome might have been different it might have been closer and uh I think we took advantage of those small mistakes and even some small mistakes in execution in that end specifically you had a really long conversation with the guys trying to figure out you know y which was the best idea of the probably three or four that there might have been now you’ve only been with these guys for a short period of time what is how how has that chemistry for you guys been built over you know the short time that you guys have been together that you trust them to bring the right call that even though you have the final say you were obviously taken in their opinion yeah when I first came on this team I think we had a really strong team dynamic off the ice immediately we really built a great friendship and a great bond off the ice it was just a matter of how do we communicate and take the great relationships that we have off the ice onto the ice and turn that communication into you know just being effective and um making lots of shots so we’ve that we’ve worked really really hard on um trying to perfect our communication out there the front end the back end and and how we communicate with each other and there’s certain points in games now where I’m really comfortable with the guys and and saying just like in seven um you know we’ve got some time on the clock we’re not going to rush this call you know come on down here and help me out and they know that I’m really open to their input and just trying to get to the right call there’s no ego when it comes to making the right call it’s just making sure that we don’t make a mistake we talk things through and we can when we can bank some time it allows us to do that and that’s really important

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