Co-op Invitational Day 4 Takeaways: Jacobs throttles Eriksson in first battle since Olympics

Friday’s matchup between Brad Jacobs and Oskar Eriksson might have been the most anticipated curling game in history.

It was the first time the Canadian and Swedish teams squared off since Eriksson accused Jacobs’ third, Marc Kennedy, of double-touching the rock at the 2026 Olympics. It was followed up by Kennedy, who didn’t take all too kindly to the accusation, going at Eriksson and getting into a swearing match on the ice.

Jacobs would win the game, but the story didn’t die there. It dominated the Olympic headlines and even caused rules to be changed, only to be changed back midway through the actual Olympic tournament. Yet Jacobs’ team never let it become a distraction and instead went on to win the Olympic gold medal for Canada.

Seven months removed from the controversy, Jacobs views their previous relationship as ruined.

“I have nothing really nice to say about those guys at the moment,” Jacobs said in a taped interview for the Grand Slam of Curling. “I believe it's tarnished a relationship that we’ve had with them, you know, for a long time, and it's tarnished it in my opinion forever.”

Nevertheless, the two teams shared the same sheet of ice once again at the Co-op Invitational happening in Victoria, B.C. This time, though, there was no yelling, swearing or accusing someone of breaking the rules.

Especially at the skip position. Jacobs’ ace percentage was 75 while Eriksson’s was 33. The real telltale sign is the edge stat, where Jacobs was plus-4 and Eriksson was a staggering minus-37.

The ace percentage is how well a curler is performing during the match — each shot is graded out of five and only fours and fives are considered made. While the edge stat shows how much better or worse a curler is performing against the field.

Jacobs’ team once again took care of business on the ice by simply outplaying Eriksson’s team to earn the 8-3 win in just six ends.

Throughout the whole game, Jacobs, Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert didn’t let anything distract them from their goal of winning. But after shaking hands in victory, the four defending goal medallists looked at each other and let out big smiles.

Waddell 6, Mouat 5 Paetz 7, Kang 2 Miura 7, Nihira 3 Yamaguchi 7, Maeda 6

Ramsfjell 5, Hoesli 4 Zardini Lacedelli 10, Fujisawa 1 Hardie 8, Y. Schwaller 2 Epping 5, Koe 2

MacMillan 7, Ueno 5 Wrana 8, Homan 6 Einarson 8, Gim 4 Carson 8, Casper 3

Dupont 7, Hasselborg 4 Dunstone 6, Bottcher 5 (SO) Jacobs 8, Eriksson 3 Schwaller 6, Reese-Hansen 5