Canada coach Jeff Stoughton is hoping to help coach Team Jacobs to a gold medal at this year’s BKT Tires World Men’s Curling Championships in Moose Jaw – just as he did as a skip the last time Saskatchewan hosted the tournament.
Stoughton led Canada to gold in 2011 when Regina hosted the best men’s curlers in the world.
“It was an experience of a lifetime,” Stoughton reminisced. “When you’re playing in front of a pretty well home crowd, it was a thrill every minute.”
“It’s always going to be one of my best memories ever, playing in front of the crowd in Regina,” he added.
As the national coach for Curling Canada, he’s on the bench behind Brad Jacobs and his Calgary rink, who are donning the Maple Leaf after winning the Montana’s Brier last month.
Jacobs has not been to a world championship since finishing second back in 2013.
In fact, Jacobs beat Stoughton in that year’s Brier final to earn the worlds birth.
“Brad’s had 12 years between world championships. That was the same number I had [in 2011],” Stoughton said. “It’s sort of like, let’s repeat what we did.”
“[Jeff] remembers that worlds very vividly,” Jacobs said “He’s already told us a little bit about his experience and how great the crowd was. They didn’t expect that much support that early.”
“Isn’t it great we can expect the same thing,” the Canadian skip added.
Team Jacobs’ third Marc Kennedy is attending his fifth worlds. He too had high praise for his now coach.
“The guy’s a legend,” Kennedy said speaking about Stoughton. “He’s got so much experience.”
Kennedy and Stoughton have been through this tournament before and are no strangers to the world stage.
“I’ve spent a few world championships with him up on the bench and the Olympics in Beijing as well,” Kennedy said. “He doesn’t get too high with the highs or too low with the lows. He makes sure everybody keeps an even keel and focuses on the important stuff.”
“It doesn’t hurt having a guy like that on the bench,” he added.
Stoughton’s respect for the level of play of his team is just as high.
“These guys know what to do,” the coach said. “They’ve all been here, have done that.”
“All the wealth of experience of that team has and [I’m] just feeding off of it from them,” Stoughton added.
Canada has not won a men’s world championship since 2017 when Brad Gushue took home gold.
However, Saskatchewan has been the scene of success for the Red and White in years past.
Three previous times the province has hosted the tournament – Canada has won gold at two of them. They finished second, at the other.
Stoughton and Jacobs hope history is in their favour.
“We want to do exactly what he did,” Jacobs said.
