REGINA — Ben Hebert has a bit of an advantage over the majority of players who will be taking the ice at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Moose Jaw in a couple weeks time.
The lead for Brad Jacobs and his newly-crowned Team Canada foursome will pretty much be in his old stomping grounds, taking the ice 45 minutes from home and in a community he’s familiar with from plenty of previous sports excursions into the Friendly City.
So when Hebert joins skip Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy and second Brett Gallant at the event beginning March 29 at the Temple Gardens Centre, there will be plenty familiar faces cheering him on — something that’s especially rare when it comes to playing for a world title.
Hebert joined The SportsCage crew to talk about his win and what’s ahead. He was quick to share his enthusiasm for the opportunity to play so close to home.
“I’m, for sure, the most excited person to be going to Moose Jaw out of everybody,” said Hebert, who will be making his fifth trip to Worlds. “Obviously being close to Regina and family and friends, but a lot of my juniors growing up I played in Moose Jaw. We played at [15 Wing], I curled with the Montgomerys out of Moose Jaw for years. So I have a lot of friends there that I curled against and I’m super pumped to see a bunch of familiar faces. That’s pretty awesome.”
Hebert has seen all sorts of success alongside Moose Jaw curlers, too. He won the 2002 Saskatchewan junior title alongside Todd Montgomery as well as his first two provincial men’s Tankard titles playing lead for Pat Simmons.
That all probably feels like a lifetime ago for the 41-year-old, who now has 17 Brier appearances under his belt, two World Championship titles, and, of course, the gold medal from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
All that success and all that winning undoubtedly plays a huge part in Hebert and his teammates knowing how to find victory in tough situations — and situations don’t come much tougher than what the Jacobs foursome went through in the 2025 Brier playoffs.
After losing their page qualifier to defending champion Brad Gushue, Jacobs had to win four straight against the best the field had to offer. Sure enough, they’d do just that, culminating with a win over Gushue in the semifinal before downing former Saskatchewan skip Matt Dunstone in the championship final.
“If we were four back and not playing very well, and maybe one of us was struggling or the confidence was leaking, I think it would have been a bit of a different story,” Hebert said. “But we had the mojo going. We were really confident behind the scenes. We had some good swagger going, a lot of hard work put in prior. So I think we just kind of stuck to it and I think we all knew if we played good, we were going to have a chance in the end.”
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have the calibre of teammates Hebert has around him, either — Jacobs, Kennedy and Gallant have also won pretty much all there is to win in the sport, with Jacobs having the 2014 Olympic gold medal to his credit.
This was the first season together for the foursome, and will naturally be one to remember, something that Hebert touched on while watching back the final shot and post-game celebration.
“It’s a daily grind and a lot of sacrifices and so you see a lot of emotion and happiness and relief and everything kind of comes pouring out at the same time,” Hebert said. “Doing it with new teammates that I’ve never done it with before is special, too. That hug with Brad, we used to battle on the ice all the time and chirp each other and probably hated each other at times too. But man, he’s a great leader and such an amazing skip and I love him. He leads by example, he’s one of the best leaders I’ve ever played for.”
With most of the celebrations out of the way, attention will soon turn full speed to Worlds and the incredibly tough competition that entails.
“I would say out of the 12 teams, we know six or seven of them really well. We’ve played them all year and we don’t need a lot of film on them, but there’s about another five teams we don’t know super well,” Hebert said, adding that Curling Canada will be throwing their full analytics power behind their gold medal quest.
“We’ll have all that data and for the most part, it’s going to be on us to go out and play good. So we have a few days off here just to recharge the batteries and we’ll start throwing rocks Thursday.”
You check out the whole interview below or listen by clicking right here.
