Jacobs, Alberta defeat Dunstone and Manitoba for 2025 Brier title
After several blanked ends, Alberta won the title in the final frame.
Brad Jacobs and Alberta won the 2025 Brier on Sunday night, beating Matt Dunstone and Manitoba 5-3 to be crowned Canada’s men’s curling champions and book their ticket to the world championships.
Manitoba qualified for the final with a 7-4 win over Brad Gushue’s Team Canada on Saturday night, while Alberta beat the three-time defending champions Canada on Sunday afternoon to punch their ticket to the championship game. Team Dunstone went 7-1 in the round robin, while Jacobs led the only undefeated team at 8-0 before faltering slightly in their first playoff game.
Jacobs then won four consecutive elimination games to get his hands on the trophy for the first time in over a decade, and becoming the first skip in Brier history to win four in a row and take the Brier tankard.
The first two ends in the final were blanked after some excellent shooting from both sides. The best shot in the early stages of the match was out of the hand of Lott, who expertly removed three stones in one go in the first end.
Jacobs made a pair of doubles as well as both teams showed exactly why they were the best two all week, even if there weren’t any early points to show for it.
Manitoba piled rocks into the house in the third end, but Alberta did a great job of clearing them away by making two more doubles. On his last throw of the end, Jacobs positioned himself as shot rock by clearing away an opposing stone, but Dunstone opted for a third straight blank to begin the game to retain the hammer.
It was the same way the semifinal between Jacobs and Gushue began, but unlike that game the fourth end was blanked as well. Fans in Kelowna were chanting “boring” in the fourth end as the game remained scoreless.
The next end seemed destined for a record-setting fifth blank in a row to start a final, but Jacobs narrowly missed a double with his final throw, leaving one Manitoba rock in the rings. Dunstone had an open draw to pick up a second point and converted it, finally putting some points on the board and taking a 2-0 lead into the break.
Jacobs and Alberta responded with a single point in the sixth end. Dunstone’s last throw was a perfectly-weighted draw that forced Jacobs to try and draw into the four-foot ring. The final shot from Jacobs was light coming out of his hand but Ben Hebert and Brett Galant’s fantastic sweep dragged it where it needed to go for one point — the team’s first of the game.
Lott made another excellent double takeout in the seventh end to put Alberta under pressure, before he and Dunstone filled the house with Manitoba rocks. Jacobs, facing three with his final shot of the end tapped back a couple of them, and had one in scoring position. Dunstone tried to clear a pair of Alberta stones away to score two, or possibly even three with the last shot, but his attempt was unsuccessful and Jacobs came away with a steal of one.
The eighth end was quick as the two sides traded takeouts, with Dunstone’s strategy seemingly to be to blank the eighth and ninth ends to have the hammer coming home in the tenth. He sent his first shot all the way through the house in the ninth, though, leaving Jacobs sitting three with one shot remaining. He was forced to hit and roll for a single point, taking a 3-2 lead into the decisive tenth end, and giving Jacobs the hammer and an opportunity to at the very least tie the game.
Alberta was clinical in the final frame. Marc Kennedy made a pair of inch-perfect shots for Alberta to leave them sitting three ahead of Dunstone’s final shot, but the Manitoba skip was unable to get his rock to the pin. Jacobs cleared it away with the final shot of the game to pick up three points, and bring the Brier tankard back to Alberta for the first time since 2021.
It’s the latest success for a team of superstars in their first year together with Brad Jacobs at the helm. It’s the second Brier title of his career, a fourth for Kennedy and a fifth for Gallant and Hebert.
They will put on the maple leaf when they represent Team Canada at the World Championships in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan later this month. They will also be Team Canada at the 2026 Brier in St. Johns, Newfoundland — where they know Brad Gushue will want to reclaim the crown on home ice. The Canadian Olympic trials will be later this year as well, with the winner representing Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
For Dunstone’s team it’s a second loss in the championship game in three years, and the Manitoba skip was in tears after letting it slip away.
The women’s World Championships are up next, beginning next week in Uijeongbu, South Korea. Canada will be represented by Rachel Homan and her red-hot 2025 Scotties champions.
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It was an excellent match with lots of drama, and many doubles. Also as well, Homan is going to kick butt at the world's next week in South Korea. What an awesome team those ladies are, as they can even hold their own against the Brier level teams, as in the Elite 10 on a few recent occasions.