The Fifth and the First w/ Ben Hebert and Paul Webster

Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of the Broom Brothers, the official podcast of the Grand Slam of Curling and the Curling Group. Thrilled to be here, John Cullen. with you as always and of course my partner in crime didn't quite win the briar but uh did come second at the pei club championships this past weekend robbie doherty is here and robbie how are you uh

How are you coping in the aftermath of your big weekend? Well, the A curling event in Canada didn't go our way, unfortunately, the PEI Club Provincials. But you know what?

The future is bright for Team Yogis, sponsored by Yogis Food and Bar. And we're just going to keep trying every year and keep things going. But congratulations to... to uh cornwall number one our club mates who won the provincials wow and uh yeah you know what though we had a few beers a few laps a few beers a few games a few beers and next year will be our year Love it. It was fun. It was fun.

It's still fun to curl, man. It's totally different. We love the game. Obviously, the Briar finishing up in Kelowna this past weekend. Team Brad Jacobs defeating team Matt Dunstone in the final.

and we will hear from two members of team brad jacobs that this is our first ever dual interview pod although we did do the international women's day special where i interviewed four people but two from the same team we've never done before uh we're gonna hear from lead ben hebert and coach paul webster both were great chat so look forward to that later in the episode but Robbie will just start

Right at the top here, Team Brad Jacobs winning the Briar. I believe they were my pick to win. And indeed, they hoist the trophy. Your immediate thoughts on Team Jacobs winning the Briar. I think Dunstone was my pick. Dunstone was your pick. Yeah. So I knew we were going head to head. So I was a little bit competitive in that one going into it, but you know what? Here's my overall thoughts on the briar. As I mentioned to you, when you live in the Atlantic time zone in our province, my, uh,

my neighboring provinces here new brunswick nova scotia and newfoundland labrador who are even more behind um by half an hour it's it was tough to see all of it to be totally honest so i didn't get to watch as much as closely as I would have liked to. As I mentioned to you, I did see most of the night games, but a lot of times I'd wake myself up from a snore or something if I heard Vic Router's voice get loud and a big shot coming up.

But I did get to rewatch it in the mornings. But it was great. It was a really cool briar. My first comment, and I'm just going to get this out of the way. I don't know if Kelowna Tourism had a lot of money invested in this event and sponsorship. But man, Kelowna looks beautiful. And if not move there, I at least want to go visit there. So job well done. Kelowna is nice. Yes. On the ice though. You know what? It was, it was really impressive. It was a great week.

You know, it's no secret that the sport in general, excuse me, in general around the world has certainly elevated in the past, I don't know, five to 10 years on another level. This week was no different. And I thought it was.

you know the first time in canada that we really not the first time but you know it stood out more to me that we have really really really great teams here and they showed it last week you know we in the curling world you hear so often about how the world used to be the world is catching up but now it's then it was the world is caught up and now it's the world is passing

and and but you know what the and the scotties too like the curling was really really good like precise precise i just couldn't get over the skill especially in the playoffs obviously and the other comment i want to say john and i'm sure we'll elaborate on this is I noticed at the start of this season, a lot of the discussion within fans and chats and all that stuff is what's the future in Canada, you know, going to look like after we see skips like Kui, Gushu.

Jacobs, I'm just using those names. I don't know when they're going to retire. But, you know, it's in the next. A lot of the skips are older. A lot of the skips are in their late 30s or early 40s. That's what I was going to say. There's a lot of fours in their age now. There was almost a sense of worry of what's the future going to look like.

Last week, we saw Owen Purcell, who we talked about. We saw Sam Moybrook. We saw Clyder. Teams like that, young up-and-coming teams, really getting a taste of the big show. And there's some really talented teams out there. So I thought it was really reassuring to see not only the top teams excel and do what they do best.

curl as precise as they did make the big shots when they had to but also seeing that next generation really nipping at their heels and giving the big dogs some some runs for their money and it was really entertaining to watch Yeah, I agree for sure. I think you can include Team Epping in there. Obviously, John a little bit older, but the Horgan brothers both in their 20s still and in Jake's case, early 20s. So bright futures ahead for both of them.

them and Ian McMillian as well. I don't know if you saw his name misspelled. I did. I did. McMillian is kind of a sick last name, to be honest. So maybe they were doing him a favor there. But yeah, no, you're right for sure. I think... You talk about the depth. You have a team like John Epping going 6-2 and missing the playoffs. We can talk about that in a little bit, the format or whatever.

The level of play here, you're talking about Epping now being a top 10 team in the world, having a 6-2 record through the round. Robin, you know, just... phenomenal, phenomenal depth. You're right. And young depth. And I think it's just, hopefully we're going to do enough.

in the country to nurture those players and keep them playing yeah because we have seen teams break through at the briar and we think okay that there's a new savior and then two years later they're not curling anymore because they go well okay going to the making the briars fun but now what uh you know i'd like to win if i could that would be or get myself in contention to win so yeah right for sure i want to start with with jacobs

And just their run, I thought they were very strong and very confident. And I think that that was what was great to see for me is I think the last few years we have seen...

it's been a little bit of the Brad Gaju show. It's like we have had teams obviously challenging them, but the stories of the last few Briars have kind of been... the teams that end up falling short you know we've seen Kevin Cooey have a couple not great briars in a row we saw Brendan Botcher for all the promise of that team you know never making it past the semi-finals and then we had kind of some surprise

finalists the last two years, Matt Dunstone, Mike McEwen kind of going on hot runs in 23 and 24, but then running into the brick wall that is Brad Guju in the final. And so I thought what was interesting to me about this year... is in comparison to the last couple is i i think this is the first briar in this quad at least for me

where all the top dogs were doing what the top dogs were supposed to be doing. And maybe the only one you could make the case that didn't was Brad Guju. You know, just because the standard is set so high for him that losing the semifinal... and losing it on a shot you'd expect him to make most of the time that might be the only team where you'd go well they underperformed a little bit but then again if brad makes that last shot

uh they're in the briar final and maybe they win and then who knows what happens but you know matt dunstone didn't have a great briar last year after 23 he looked phenomenal this year super confident he was playing great jacobs It felt like everything they wanted to do with this team was coming together. Reid looked revitalized, having BJ with him. Like you said, Owen Purcell goes on that hot run. Mike McEwen may be stumbling a little bit, but again.

It just came down to a couple shots. It wasn't like you wouldn't have watched them during the week and thought, oh, these guys are performing poorly. Kevin Cooey coming off that disappointing Briar last year, they actually were quite good as well. I mean, they went four and four, but, you know.

played very well if you watch any of their games they were giving battles to everybody so i think that was really the story of the briar to me was everybody was kind of doing what they were supposed to be doing the teams were playing really really well and the briar lived up to you know the deep field that it had yeah and i think it kind of to add to my first point is you know curling like

especially in Canada with these teams, like the precision was just mind blowing to watch. And I think, you know, you see a lot of comments on the internet or, or on Reddit, like things, you know, those apps and people, I don't think understand how hard the briar is to win. It's extremely hard to win. So, like, we talked about Gushu, you know, they didn't even make the final. It was literally one shot. It was one shot. Yeah. And, like, that shows you the level.

that it's at you know you throw one a little bit heavy it doesn't quite curl you don't remove it or you don't move the rock far enough briar's over and then like you said if they win and move on it's and they win You know, you're looked at as a hero. It would have been, what, six in a row or something. Mind-blowing. And then we talk about McEwen, you know, stumbling. McEwen's team didn't play that bad. No, definitely not. It's not like they, you know, only one loss in the round robin.

Yeah, exactly. But I think it just shows you how much better you have to be than kind of your average good game at the Briar to go all the way. And I think it really just says something about the level of competition that was being displayed out there. Canada's in good hands, man. Going back to that comment about, you know, the threat of the world team's passing and kind of leaving us in the dust.

I mean, yes, like it's happened. Like Mowat and those teams are retorn as last year. They are unbelievable curling teams. But I just thought the Breyer this year, it really showed that, you know, Canadian teams are definitely still there. They're really good. And I do think to add your very first point, Team Jacobs, they were your pick. They really looked from the 3-4 game on like they were going to win that event.

they just it wasn't just how good they were playing it was the timing of when they would make big shots it was the way they were communicating i the look that brad jacobs had in his eyes i wouldn't want to be on the other team put it that way and a little bit scary a little bit scary a little bit scary but but yeah it was very entertaining uh you know

Heartbreaks for Matt Dunstone and the team just to get that hot and go on the run and then lose it in the final, especially when you have Hammer. But that team's on the upswing too. I think when they brought EJ in, it certainly brought a lot. That team, they have an extremely bright future, and that can light a fire under your ass pretty quick, and especially springtime before the Olympics and the Olympic trials. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Yeah, totally. Well, we're going to talk a lot about Team Jacobs in the interviews with Ben and Paul. So we can move on from talking about them because we're going to get all the insight from them. I thought both interviews were really great and really put some things in perspective.

out about that team but let's talk about matt dunstone because you know has a great run uh goes undefeated in the in the playoffs leading up to the you know gets himself into the one two game wins that against beats brad guju twice to get himself into that final, get the bye to the final. You talk about the confidence with EJ. Tell me a little bit more about what you saw from Team Dunstone over the course of the weekend.

i think i saw a solid lineup right right through like you mentioned it right right from the get-go they were there on a mission and they were dialed in right from the start you know the level of play i already talked about it for 10 minutes straight pretty much it feels like but but it was just such a high intense level of play all week and tooth

a lot of sorry a lot of things were working well for that team so i don't want to try to point out specific things but the things that stood out to me was matt truly had his game face on maybe a little slip up in the eighth end We're going to get into that later in the interviews strategically. And who am I to say that that was a mistake? I'm a lead from PEI. You know what I mean? But it was a strategic call.

It didn't pay off for them. But again, if it did pay off for them, maybe we're not talking about this. But I thought Colton Lott really looked like he belonged as a top third at the Breyer.

say a casual curling fan it's really easy to see a younger person you know maybe doesn't have the 12 bullet points on the resume for for winnings but that doesn't mean they can't play and it's just or they're not as good colton lot i thought was dialed in he made some huge shots at big times um and i think a lot of it too is going back to that ej thing when you bring when you bring in uh the brush brothers not the broom brother yeah yes

And yes, we do pay them royalties. Everyone who's asking, we pay them royalties. So don't worry about it. Listen, I... you have no idea how much I was hoping for just one Vic router slip up where he says, I might've even messaged Joanne and asked, anyway, it didn't happen. But, but you know, you put them in front of you, sweeping your rocks and.

your confidence can't help but go up it's just it's not even the strength it's the chemistry they're brothers they're passionate they've won the olympics together like sweeping rocks and i think it showed i just it was a great game. You know, we're going to get into it again. I'm not going to bring it up, but yeah, there was a lot of zeros on the scoreboard, but there was rocks in play. It was, it was skill. Like it was just.

Yeah, it was, it was interesting. I think, you know, I talked about this on Twitter, but Matt is such a confidence player. And I think I talked about this on the last episode of Broom Brothers, the one we did.

the Briar preview before the international women's day special, which by the way, if you haven't checked it out, that was a great, great chat with Jennifer Jones, Rachel Holman, Anna Hasselborg and Jocelyn Peterman about being a woman in curling. And yeah, a lot of fascinating insights on that.

so so check it out if you haven't yet but yeah i think i said in the briar preview too you know like last year going into the briar and matt sort of you know he made the playoffs but flamed out a little early You know, I think it was on inside curling or somewhere where he was just like, well, if I don't fix my outturn, we were not going to win the Briar. And he's saying this like a week before the two weeks before the Briar.

you know, well, my outturn is garbage. And I don't know if that was the exact quote, but it was one of the shot. Well, if I can't fix my outturn peels, we're going to lose. So whatever, you know, like he's just, he's a very confident. based player and you're right like he had the confidence right from the beginning like it just feels like this is the right lineup for them and obviously

you know, BJ is an unbelievable player. I mean, we see it this week, second spiel only with Reed and they make the three, four game. He's clearly given that team new life. Um, so it's not like, you know, it's had to be. a tough decision to get rid of BJ you know one of the best but yeah the brushing of EJ and Ryan I think just gives Matt the confidence he can make anything Colton you're right played phenomenal I think I said on Broome Brothers as well

or maybe in one of my newsletters, or I said, you know, I think Colton will be one of the best thirds in the world. And I got a text from someone in the game during the briar referencing me saying that, and they were saying, you know, are you sure he's not there now? Are you sure that he hasn't, uh, he's not already there? Uh, because yeah, he was absolutely dynamite this week. Just looks so comfortable there. Cause he hasn't been there long. He's been this whole great run.

they've had he's been the second um and so you know you're talking about replacing bj moving up the lineup Yeah, I thought he looked fantastic. And the whole team looked great. Obviously, disappointment. You can't help but feel for Matt. He's a guy who just wears his emotions on his sleeve and on his face, I guess. And that goes both.

ways good and bad um and he's he's so exciting to watch because of that um so yeah obviously you feel crushed for him and i'm sure he's probably getting a little tired of hearing well you're gonna win one he's gonna win one it's like okay but i haven't so

Shut up, you know? But yeah, I really thought... great week for them i hope they take the right things away from it and and i'm sure they will with time i'm sure it hurts right now but yeah let's get to the strategy because you know this was obviously a talking point amongst

people on Twitter online and just, yeah, I was getting texts during the final as well. Were you surprised to see them play that final so defensively? Because yeah, it seemed like they were, they were very cautious about not wanting to flip the hammer early.

on in the game. Well, it felt like they had a game plan. So I'm going to assume that the team talked about it. You know what I mean? Like they, they seem to be, I'm assuming they were all on board to do that. I mean, I'll say it again. I'm a lead from PEI. Who am I to go out and tell? you know top 10 ranked team in the world what you do but it felt like like kind of echo what you said a little while ago

if you get a team kind of just coming off of semifinals, you've been rest, like I'd be more tempted to go right at them. I'd kind of, you know, throw something up, see what, see what happens. Maybe you'll get a roll out. You'll get a roll too far or, or one slip behind the T line.

have a chance to draw around a guard like i guess what i'm saying is that i don't know if going balls out from the very first rock was the play but maybe throw a corner up and just sort of see what happens keep it around and you know you might get a miss here and there and there's a two and

you know based on the final score two would have been a pretty pretty big and i guess he did eventually get a get a deuce but but um yeah i i was surprised i was surprised to see it that defensive um but again They're Team Dunstone. I'm co-host of the Broome Brothers.

I was going to say what they did was wrong. For sure. I just think it was, I think especially the eighth end was quite surprising. You know, Team Jacobs puts their first rock in the house. Matt decides to hit it. I think, and this is in a tie game, and I think most people would think if you... You have the hammer in the eighth end in a tie game.

You, in theory, have two hammers to the opponent's one. I think a lot of people would have thought you'd throw a corner or even a delayed corner in that situation if you think the first rock is in too good of a spot or whatever the case. so yeah i think that was really the only thing that was surprising because i think most teams would be fine scoring one in eight

It would be like getting forced is not the end of the world. If you blank eight, you're putting so much pressure on yourself to also blank nine. Or score three. Yeah, or score two or three, right? So you're... Getting forced in eight is way less bad than getting forced in nine. Yes. Which is what ended up happening to them. And so I think, you know, that eighth end, you'd see most teams play a fairly aggressive strategy because they know that as long as you don't give up a steal.

Any result in eight is pretty good for you. A blank is okay. You keep the hammer and maybe you get a blank in nine and you just keep the hammer to 10. One is okay too, because then if you force Jacobs in nine, now you have the hammer in a tie game in 10. even if...

You give up two in nine, you have the hammer down one in 10, which is the exact situation Brad Jacobs was in and they won. So, yeah, and then obviously if you get two or more in eight, your odds of winning the game will get into the 80s maybe. even the low nineties, if you go up two in the eighth. So I think that was the only one where.

you know i think playing defensive at the start i agree like yeah i'm gonna i asked ben about that in the interviews but i you know was maybe a little surprised knowing your team is coming off of the emotional semi-final that was they only had about less than two hours to recover in between games you know i might have been tempted to force the issue a little early but even if you don't and and that's fine if you don't um i would say yeah i was a little shocked that um

Yeah, they played the eighth so conservatively. Obviously, as you said, it was probably a game plan and something they had thought about doing ahead of time. But I do wonder if that's something they'll look at in the...

aftermath of all of this and say, you know, maybe the next time we get in that scenario, we'll play it a little bit differently. Now, Robbie, before we move on from the briar and get to these interviews, I want to give you a chance to... give yourself a pat on the back here because, you know, I'm sure we'll talk briefly about some of the other results, but maybe one of the most, not necessarily shocking, but one of the, you know, sort of.

One of the storyline results of the week was Briar rookie skip Owen Purcell making the playoffs. He was a guy that you had highlighted, had a win, a must win game against Sam Moybrook in the last game of the round. And so essentially... played a couple playoff games because, you know, a must win game is basically a playoff game. Tell me about Owen Purcell, your thoughts on him and just other teams on the week. Any other thoughts you have?

Out of all of them, I actually, I would say I know Owen the least. He's younger than me. And Halifax is only three and a half hours away. So I've seen those guys a lot. Luke Saunders and I are really good buddies. And Scott Zachary and I are pretty close buddies too.

Luke and I kind of go way back. I spent a lot of time with Luke and Luke was one of those guys who he got into curling quite late. He was a tennis player, very competitive tennis player. I think he played in Tennessee for a long time through college. But he's a gamer. He's a winner. He knows how to win. He's not intimidated by anybody. He was raised by Colleen Jones, arguably the toughest mindset in the history of the game, or one of them at least.

and who was who was on the bench with them so you know that's that's a pretty winning lineup and they can play and there's a there's a club in halifax the halifax curling club and they're doing a lot of things right right now and they're they're producing some really Really good teams. Teams that sort of play not so much that, you know, I've heard it 10,000 times every Nationals with the lazy handles. Like, they don't play like that. They play like real teams. Like, you know.

good teams so i think a lot of people have that in their mind that oh they're from the maritimes you know they're they're going to struggle early they're not going to be able to read the ice they throw a half you know one and a half rotations as opposed to three and a half or four But these guys, I knew this going into it where a lot of the audience may be.

you know, come back in West. They just don't see him as much, but you know, I knew those guys would play. I knew how much experience there was. I knew how confident they were. I just knew they'd be really tough to deal with all week from, and maybe not so much the goose shoes and the Jacobs and the Dunstones, but.

the moy brooks and the eppings and the that kind of next tier down um i knew they'd be tough i knew they'd be fearless and i wasn't surprised at all to see them in the provincial so i was pretty proud of them luke and i spent a lot of time together when i went to the mount in halifax it's a university i was there for a year and a house set for my aunt and i had one job she was in the family was in florida i had one job don't lose the cat

Anyway, Luke and I ordered pizza one night. The cat got out. I really hope my aunt doesn't listen to this. Anyway, we rescued Buffy. Buffy came right back. But Luke and I had a scare. I saw how tough he was in that moment.

it reminded me of uh of that in colonna so good job boys colleen favorite curler favorite coach good job yeah no they they seemed i what i really liked about them is they seem like they were having fun as well it didn't seem like it got too complicated for them even when they started to get into the must-win game against Moybrook the playoff game against Jacobs they didn't look cowed by the moment but they also didn't look like

their lives were ruined you know and maybe that's just the benefit of having you know a rookie skip at the briar or whatever but I yeah I was really impressed With just their overall demeanor, I think they made a lot of fans this week, which I thought was excellent. The team I wanted to spotlight from the next group down is Reid. You know, I think a lot of turmoil for Reed this last.

365 days you know i think he probably thought he had a pretty solid thing going with brad jacobs uh obviously he leaves for the opportunity with with his team and That paid off. You know, they win the Briar, but obviously a huge blow for Reed. And then. You know, everything with Derek Samogalski also leaving the team and having to, you know, bring in Kyle Deering and then BJ becomes available and...

You know, then you have to have a tough conversation with Kyle. Hey, we brought you on the team, but you've kind of only played for like two tournaments, but also BJ is available. Can you be the fifth? You know, anybody who knows Kyle knows, you know, he's one of the.

the best guys in the game. So I'm sure that conversation maybe wasn't as tough as it might have been with someone else, but I'm sure it wasn't an easy conversation to have. Then you only play one tournament, the Manitoba Provincials leading into the Briar.

And I just thought Reid looked refreshed. It looked like, you know, he just had a ton of confidence in what BJ was doing in front of him. I think getting to move Catlin down to second was also great. Just Catlin's a great thrower, but he's also a really good sweeper. gave him a nice sweeping pair. Connor Negevin for being a smaller guy is also a really great sweeper. So yeah, I think...

All those things combined, you could have easily seen a week. And with Carruthers being in the more difficult pool, too. You could have easily seen a week where they went three and five or even two and six, and you wouldn't have been shocked. You would have said, well, it's been a crazy year for them.

too bad you know it's they couldn't get it together in time uh but quite the opposite actually find their way into the 3-4 game uh you know obviously very tight battle with brad jacobs they end up getting a steal of two in the ninth to make it a tie game very close uh closer than it probably was on the scoreboard than it was in in fact but yeah

It was just nice to see Reed have his mojo back. I think curling is a better place when he's cooking. And it was nice to see BJ looked really refreshed as well and looked like he was right in there with them. So that team is both... interesting because i think you know great briar but now do they stay together i think that's also the interesting thing you know i would imagine the agreement with bj didn't go past well let's just see if we can make the briar and

go from there um and so that'll be i'll be interested to see where that goes does bj stick around is there a fit for bj with kevin cooey potentially um I don't know. That's no insider info. I'm not sure, but that'll be the curious thing to me to see. Cause I think it did work. I like, I would like to see them stay together. I think it was a nice, it was a really nice mix for them. And it was really fun to watch and just, yeah.

saw Reed get so pumped on some of those big shots he was making. And yeah, it was just, it was just fun to have that team cooking at the briar, I think. And to add to that, I actually noticed that too. I watched their tankard final. like their provincial final. And they looked confident in that game too. They were sharp. I think BJ, I think you're bang on. I agree with everything you said there. BJ brought a lot to that team and kind of rounded it out, but it just looked like Reed.

had that look in his eye once again that you know he was confident he was he was enjoying himself and it was translating into wins and catlin made a few big shots too that that that was another one the other thing i wanted to say a little slow and then he and then he really picked it up and towards the end of the weekend in the playoffs he was very good yeah and connor You had mentioned he's just a physically smaller guy.

Adam Casey had played a couple of years with Connor and he was telling me that in the gym and when they, you know, they do some testing with the test rooms to see how much pressure they were getting. Connor's numbers apparently were just through the roof. So he's a really strong guy and he's certain.

was very effective out there. He made a lot of shots for the team, you know, with his brush. Yeah, it was an all-star, second-team all-star lead, I believe. Yeah, well-deserved, so hats off. Great week to Team Carothers.

Yeah. Great week for them. Great week for team personal. There's way more we could talk about with the Briar, but our interviews are, are jam packed. We don't want you to miss any of those. So we'll, we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Maybe we'll still be talking about Briar fallout by then, but.

Hopefully that's enough of a recap because we do just very briefly want to touch on the, the next tournament. We're in the season of champions, Robbie. We can't keep up, but the world's starting this weekend in South Korea. And the question is the same as it ever was, Robbie. Can anyone beat Rachel Homan? No. Let's get to the interview. I'm just joking. Well, I mean, they're playing like Team Holman, and they were so sharp. Sharp's not even the word. Dominating at the Scotties.

You know a lot of those European teams and, well, sorry, not European, but teams from around the world, participating in the Worlds. We're watching a lot of that, Scotties. And they know what they're up against, and it's a tall order.

and uh i think they're gonna be really tough repeat repeat yeah i feel i feel bad for team lithuania their first uh world women's championship and their first game is against rachel homan hey welcome i don't know if the uh i don't know if the fans back in in Vilnius will be going wild for the that's the capital of Lithuania just in case our listeners don't know but the fans in Vilnius may be in for a rude awakening with that first game again

rachel i was like oh please you couldn't get you couldn't give uh couldn't give lithuania one of the maybe slightly easier spaces on the bingo card maybe a little turkey match up uh to start or something but uh yeah When the pools came out for the Scotties, I remember looking at it because we knew who was going team DiCarlo. And they had their first Scotties last year.

Your first time, it's a learning event. And we're saying, you know, the whole province was behind them and, you know, really hoping they'd have a great week. And the pools came out Friday night, PEI versus Canada. And I was just like, oh. that's that's a tough draw that's a tough draw but yeah it was like my uh my bc boys you know first briar for uh for cam deong and they started the briar

Manitoba, Carruthers, Canada, Guju, Manitoba, Dunstone, Alberta, Cooey, Northern Ontario, Epping. Welcome to the Briar. Yeah, enjoy. Cooey had a pretty tough one too. Yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they started with Dunstone, Epping, Carruthers, De Jong. Then they got, well, they got De Jong, Latimer, then Guju. So, but yeah, they started Dunstone, Epping, Carruthers, lost all three of those. And you start 0-3, and as we found out...

they literally were out after that third loss. They didn't know it at the time, but yeah, tough, tough, tough way to start. But yeah, I think the storyline remains the same for the world. Women's. Uh, Rachel Homan, but her last game against international competition was against Anna Hasselberg at the slam in Guelph and she lost. So, um, there are, there are losses out there. Rachel also lost at the world's last year once, I believe to team GIM. Uh, but, uh,

But yeah, they will definitely be the favorite going into the Worlds. But as we've said, the World field is deep. Tiran Zoni is there. Gim is there. You know, Hasselborg is there. There's lots of great teams in the field. So we'll be paying close attention to that. We'll see how Rachel Holman does over the next couple of weeks. But without any further ado, let's get on to our two.

interviews with our briar champions ben hebert and paul webster ben is on deck first let's go right to it all right we are pleased to be joined by the newly minted briar champion five times baby five times put them up the briar tankard in the background as we do this interview ben hebert is here ben obviously congratulations on your big win uh we're gonna bring you in with the

Top four. I'm going to ask you four quick questions in succession, and you're just going to give me the first answer that pops into your head, okay? All right, here we go. Who is a curler that you have never played with before that you would like to? Mark Nichols. Nice. When I thought about that question, I was like, you've played with a lot of guys. So if you know that both sets of rocks are good, there's no issues with either set, what color are you taking? Red.

Where's your favorite place to curl other than your hometown? Victoria, BC. Oh, the Bear Mountain Classic? Yeah. Nice. Love it. And how would your bitterest rival describe you? Probably got to talk to Brad. I don't know. I don't know. Ben, listen, John Cena just turned heel a week ago. He's been in the news, but his fame is saying, the champ is here. You did it. You won the briar. How's it feel? Yeah, it feels amazing. It's funny.

I won my first one when I was 24 with the Bear. And I remember being like, wow, that's an amazing feeling. And when you win, it creates this fire inside of you. It's the only other way to really get that feeling back. If you've never had it, it's all good. You're like, well, this is as happy as I'm going to be. But then you get that one taste of it and you're like, it's really hard to get back there unless you actually get back there.

And we are, we are back, baby. We are so back. We are so back. So like, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't change, you know, getting any, getting older, getting younger. It don't matter. It's.

an amazing feeling doesn't change at all this fifth one was just as good as my first one and you know to do it with the new guys and and you know get cupsy his second and win brett's fifth and just another one with mark mark hadn't marks embarrassing for mark he only had three so a bit embarrassing for him so we need to get him to four so yeah Really, really proud of the guys. I'm just as happy for my teammates as I am everything else. To do with those guys is pretty special.

Yeah, we're flying. We're flying on cloud nine today. We're going to come down probably tomorrow, but we're still flying a bit here. That's perfect. We got you at the right time then. And this is actually nice. I didn't know that me never winning the Briar and actually never getting to the Briar was good for me. That was actually good.

for my health i didn't realize it is it is good for you you don't realize but if you win one well if you win one like we won when we were young so you know i was 24 mark was 25. if you don't win From that point on to the next. Right. Failure. Every year, failure. Well, and you probably feel like you're going to win a million. You win your first one when you're 24. You go, I'm going to win 10 of these things. Totally. Totally. I mean, especially the way it was going.

the way the sport would have changed so much over the years and it's so hard to win now that you know i don't take any any things for granted and i mean i haven't for a lot of years after we started getting work there in the middle of my career but uh it's pretty special to get back here and represent canada again and

and the way it went down we've been playing really good so you know it's not like a super it's not a surprise like we were saying yesterday i was with brett last night you're like you know you go to those things prepared and you know whether we were the favorite or not we in our mind thought that

we were the favorite or if we played good we had a really good chance to win and then it doesn't really hit you until you actually win you're like holy smokes you know we actually did it um but you go there expecting to win and then when you win you're in shock i don't know it's hard to explain crazy crazy crazy feeling and like to do it with new players and see how they react and how special it is to them you know that was awesome

Well, I wanted to ask because, you know, I watched your immediate post-game presser and you did get quite emotional. And I think, you know, people would sort of see from the outside, well, you've won five of these things and you've won bigger.

titles you've won world championships and olympic gold medals what was it about this one in particular that kind of got you in your feels like right after the game um i don't know i i i don't know i just um i mean i i feel it right now again for god i get goosebumps right now even just thinking about that but um i just think getting older you know knowing that you know i'm not going to be doing this forever and you know the

back nine of my career and i don't know exactly when it's gonna end but i know it's not too far down the road here and i just i just understand you know i have a great perspective how hard it is to win these and you know in the way we won you know got fortunate there in the semi we got a big break and then

battled hard in the final and that you know it's not a open hit up for coming home or you're planning and you know we're playing a great team without the hammer and they were playing great it was a 50-50 game i mean those are the games you want to be involved in but i've been a lot of those that go the other way

And so, you know, taking that break and then just letting out some emotion and just kind of how I was feeling. Having my family there, you know, my kids, that was the big one for me probably. sent me over the edge a little bit like they were young when we were winning a lot or or not born you know yeah so you know having them there and them understand it and get to watch you know that's that was the most special for me for sure

Ben, I want to jump in. I interviewed you on the Sportsnet broadcast in NISCU before a game. And it was early in the season. And I kind of asked you about the new skip and that sort of thing and how it was all working out. And you specifically told me.

that we're certainly not where we want to be yet but we know it's a process and we know it's going to take time two-part question are you where you think you want to be now and did it happen faster than you anticipated Well, I'm the least patient guy on our team by a mile, so that's for sure.

So I was probably a quote that Mark or Brett or Paul told me to say that I actually told you that because that's not really what I think. I'm like, we need to win now. We're good enough to win now. But it is a process. I mean, there's a lot of things. We learned a lot even actually.

even our last two slam finals against bruce and ross you know we played well we could have easily won both of those games but probably losing those made us go back to the drawing board and and look at a couple things that we were doing and we put in a lot of work prior to the briar with

actually with murdoch with webby just going over some things situational things we wanted to work on and yeah we're right where we want to be now uh we're i mean we played amazing i know you know there were certain breaks we got to win but

there was a lot of times that those breaks shouldn't even have been there like we we felt very confident that if we went to the briar and played our best game we were going to win you know when you get out there and things happen other teams play great but i think that uh

the learning curve of losing those two slam finals as much as they hurt you know really helped us in the briar i don't think i've ever been so calm in the 10th when we needed to do so even that last shot you know brett's like you know just be patient and you know take a deep breath i'm like

buddy this is about as calm as i could ever imagine myself being so i felt uh very prepared uh very confident in my teammates you know total just like zen mode that we were good to go to do this i actually felt I've been super nervous. I mean, the most nervous I ever was in my life was sweeping a draw to the button at the Casino Rama skins game against Murdoch on the worst ice of all time. I was sweeping for the bear, me and Mark, and we put it like this far from the pin.

and it was hard to hit the rings but i remember just like so nervous sweeping that rock and i remember brad's last one i mean it wasn't that hard of a shock you know we get to draw the nail but even if we did i just felt like calm and collected and that we were going to do it because we had put all the work in prior and we were super prepared so that's that's how i kind of felt uh on that last shot for sure

can you give us a little insight as to what some of those tweaks were as far you know you say you lost the slam final to bruce and ross you get back in the lab a little bit what were can you give us some insight on what those things were um Nothing really technical or shot making wise. You know, some sweeping stuff for myself. We just went over some gameplay, some strategy stuff that we wanted to work on that we thought was going to benefit us rather than going with like.

the traditional playbook of maybe what other teams did we were trying to just kind of make our own and like you say you talk about a process and coming from different teams like you know we had brad's strategy we had you know yeah brendan's strategy you know mark and then there was a little bit of um

you know brett from what the goo used to do so you know we just kind of tried to make our own for the new team jacobs and and that was probably the biggest thing that that benefited us i think that we just we had a plan which was good you talked about uh not winning it uh in quite a while i did some reading on your or some research on you in your career and i think your first briar win was 2008 correct so i wanted to ask you and this sparked this question about the slam finals

2008 world curling looked a lot different than it does now. Just with the development of teams around the world. countries like italy and so and so if you would have said in 2008 that they're going to be you know extremely tough at the world championships probably would have got a different answer than you'd get now how does that change your team's training in getting ready for the world championships well

Yeah, I mean, when we won with the Bear in 2008, it was like, okay, what kind of suits are we going to get for the banquet? What kind of pictures are we going to take with the gold medal? I mean, that year, I can't even remember who did we beat Dave Murdoch. But he had someone else playing third. He didn't even have Ewan McDonald playing third. You guys probably remember. I don't remember. Is that in Grand Forks? Yeah, North Dakota.

and i'm trying to remember who else was even in that world like ralph stockley maybe i think we lost looking it up right now you got uh graham connell was third for dave murdoch and then as far as the bad matchup against johnny moe And then as far as like other teams, you got all's rude in here. Andy, Andy cap. Claudio Pescia was the skip of Switzerland, but he had her lemon throwing third.

But yeah, like even Sweden that year was not very strong. Anders Kraup was the skip for Sweden that year. You got France in here. You've got Czech Republic in here. Australia's in here. Yeah. So that's how long I've been playing. And so our prep going into that, me and Johnny probably looked at the list and we went, okay, we're going out this night. We're for sure going out this night.

karaoke right off and get ready for the semis like but that was just kind of the way it was um and then this year yeah we had a lot of fun on sunday night me and brett had a little fun last night and i'm

as soon as we're off this call i'm going to the gym boys i'm getting back at it here so we're gonna get right back at it probably back throwing rocks thursday need a couple days off just to kind of get the body feeling better and then um yeah we got the guys coming into calgary twice before the before we head to the jaw

And so we'll be getting ready. We know that to go there and win a medal is a really good accomplishment, any color medal. There's six teams there in my mind I think that could win, truthfully win. you know you got to make that top six get into the playoffs and then you got to get hot for the playoffs like anything else it's like it's like winning a slam it's very very difficult um so yeah we know the task at hand is not easy and

You know, winning the briar doesn't guarantee a medal anymore by any stretch. So we're going to be working hard and we're going to try to do our best to be prepared. Love it. I want to go back to. the briar uh you know that's that is the topic at hand here and i think people have kind of talked about the briar format ad nauseum we don't need to get super into it but i did want to ask

You know, you guys go undefeated through the round robin, then you lose one game, and now all of a sudden you've got to win four in a row to win it. That's maybe the only part of the briar that doesn't seem appropriate to me at the moment. We talked about it a little bit afterwards and I just don't know how to fix it. I just don't have a solution. So Curling Canada is doing their best to keep the tradition of the game. I love the Briar. I love the provinces in the Briar.

I was never even a real big fan of wildcard names and the shitty jerseys. I love what they're doing, Nolan's doing to kind of keep it in Indiana. You know, I'm a big traditionalist. Like you say, I went to the Breyer in 2005 with the old. the pace setters boys so i do love that about that's why the briar is amazing that's why it's sold out that's why it's the best event it's the best event in our country so um i don't want to lose that but at the same time

If you don't want to lose that, you're going to have give and takes. And if it's a shittier format or if there's a bad crossover, if I had a solution, I'd love to give one. I know there's a lot of opinions. I know they talk about relegation here and there. The relegation can only go so far to like.

What is taking two or three teams out going to do? You're not having a round robin. So unless you're going to actually make it proper where it's a real round robin and then you're booting real good teams out again and now there's only three good teams instead of six or seven.

I actually think they're doing the best as they can right now. And if this is the format they're going to continue to keep, I mean, Hey, they tried it a couple of years ago with like that championship pool. And then there was a weird two versus three game that if you were seven and one and lost, you were out.

the best format they've found in a few years. I like the format too. I just, it's just for me, it's the, you got to win four in a row and the semi and the final are on the same day, which I hate that. So I hate that. I thought it was a big advantage for us Saturday morning to play the goo after he lost on or Sunday morning after he lost late on Saturday night.

That's a big disadvantage for him. We're rested all day watching that game feed up. And then it was a big disadvantage for us having to go back on the ice two hours later to play math for a Canadian championship. So they do need to probably fix that. but as far as the format goes i think they're doing a really good job i don't have any complaints at all i usually hey i usually have a lot of complaints how how has it changed though like like for maybe for um

fans who have never played in a briar, never played in a big event. Like in the old days, you said you played everybody once, you got to the playoffs, you played them again. Now you only play half the teams, but you do have the chance to sit back, watch some games because you, you know,

pools are on different times, obviously. How has it changed in terms of getting ready for the playoffs? Like, for example, playing Gushu or playing Dunstone in that first matchup or the semifinal. Just talk about the differences in how you prepare.

well the biggest difference is honestly you don't even see the other teams like you don't even visually see them like i remember getting to the was it the game where we played brad reed's team was in there i think they were practicing getting ready for that that night game because i think

Anyways, we were like, oh, you guys are in this spiel. Like we didn't actually, we didn't see, I didn't see anyone from the other teams from Friday to Thursday. Like you're not in the dressing room at the same time. It's like.

your pool their pool you only see them on tv that's kind of the weird thing then you get to the playoffs you're like oh you guys are in this field too that's kind of the only weird thing outside of that it doesn't change too much we're watching them we can watch one or two games you know the teams that are playing good and you know

they're playing good and where they're struggling and where they're not and it's easy to see so i wouldn't i wasn't too fussed about who we were playing when we had to play brad and matt I didn't go there when we were winning without playing Brad or Matt, if you were wondering. I was pretty certain we were right where we were supposed to be.

Yeah. Yeah. I, this briar was interesting because, and particularly the playoffs, like you talk about knowing you're going to play Brad, knowing you're going to play Matt, probably this was a weird briar in that it felt like the playoffs.

there was this sort of overarching rivalry story in basically every game right like you have you guys obviously parted ways with brendan brad parted ways with reed brett used to play with brad guju like was is that stuff even going through your mind in the playoffs or in the briar like was that was that additional motivation or anything or is it all just kind of you're past all of that now it's funny like

i mean don't get me wrong i've thought about it lots lots i mean during that process of you know moving on from a teammate or a player and you know a friend you know it's brutal you don't like that i mean um i'm sure it's like that for all those guys i mean even

You know, we played Reed in the 3-4 game. Like, that's the team Brad left to come to us. Like, well, can't really lose this one. That'd be embarrassing. You know, there's a lot of things out there. And, you know, Brad had to play his cousins in the final. And, you know, playing the goo, one rivalry. It's not like we're not like we're besties. And, you know, Brett being with us and Brad winning the last two after Brett left. I mean, there's just a lot of shit.

and i have thought about it you know going in and stuff like you know i'd like to beat that for this or this for that but man when you're out there it sounds super clear i don't even think about it for one second and then afterwards you don't not a spiteful i'm not jealous guy or a spiteful guy like i'm i'm just more happy for my teammates than i am like more happier that we disappointed somebody else i don't i don't really care about that at all i mean we have so many of our own supporters and

whether it be sponsors, families, friends, wives, kids, teammates, to worry about the people that love us and want us to win. The people that didn't. I'm too old and past that. I think I used to care about that a lot. I'm just so happy to share it with the people that...

are happy too and there's a lot of them so no i don't i don't feel like that about any ex teammates or any rivalries anymore i mean it's hard enough to win and i think i played long enough that i beat them all a ton of times and they've whooped me a whole bunch of times and at this point it's just kind of like is what it is we're all trying to accomplish the same goal and those are real teams mike reed brad matt like those guys work hard they work just as hard as we do

Was there any team that jumped out at you at the Briar that maybe played a little bit better than you would have expected them to? Kind of a breakout Briar, for example? Well, against us.

when we played them i said well they're making the playoffs for sure was collider they played us real tough and i like their team good kids i'm i mean i'm biased because they're from saski so i enjoy them and shoot the with them but they played us real tough and then they were brutal in other games i'm like come on they're they're they were the i thought for sure they were the third best team in our pool

and was going to make a run with us and Mike. And then they kind of faltered and lost a couple of real bad games. You know, who actually, they surprised. I don't even know what their final record was, but UConn with Thomas Scoffin and Carrot Third, they weren't a free game.

Yeah, they went 4-4, UConn's best performance. Were they 4-4? Yeah, 4-4. Yeah, they played that good. They looked like they could have upset a few teams. I know a whole bunch of people were like, oh, the pools. And we had the soft pool. And I'm like... has anybody watched the tour this year because kleider boy brook even uh you know felix's team they they underwhelmed me a little bit

Because I know they got some talent in JM. I just think of him snaring the 06 Briar. And, you know, Martin Kret worked me at the juniors. And, like, they have an aura of them being good. They weren't good. But they...

they could beat anybody at any time. You know, they just have a team that, you know, they could go out and make a lot of shots. But, and then honestly, I didn't see a lot of the other pool. I know Epdog got the raw end of the deal, going six and two and losing the wrong game, but looked like they were playing pretty good. I mean. That's the thing with the briar. You just kind of got to make the playoffs and get hot for a couple of days. What were your thoughts on Nova Scotia? Great guys.

we like like uh owen owen there he's a great guy their third's nice fella i mean i've known scott zachary for years um owen looks like megamind like I like him. He's a beauty. He's a great guy. You can tell that they're a good team. He's young. I know he looks old as shit, but he's a young guy. He's going to be around for a while. you know he's the guy that i could i could cheer for for sure he was i think i voted for him for the sportsmanship actually yeah

I know those guys from around here, obviously, but in the episode before the Briar, John and I talked about Team UConn. Yeah, Robbie's trying to pat himself on the back here. Yeah, they were decent. And they made the playoffs. Yeah. so van van moey brook and kleider i thought obviously were the three teams kleider for sure played us the toughest um i mean nova scotia took us to the last rock in the

Whatever you call it, the 3-3 game or whatever. Yeah, yeah. What happened? Did they get us two stealing us in nine or something? That was a different... Oh, that was me and Brad Pitt. Yeah, I mean... I thought we bullied them even in that game pretty good. We had an open hit, like half open hit for four and it picked. And so we were one up coming home, but they hung in there and I thought they did well. They probably finished as high as they could have.

but they played really well. Yeah, they had a good showing. I want to talk about the final because I think...

I was maybe a little surprised at Matt's approach to the final. Played pretty defensively and rather cautious. And I kind of thought... um with you guys having just come off of the semi-final i might have tried to take the game to you a little earlier but There was an interesting comment you made in the post-game interview where you said you felt like that was the only way they could have beaten you.

So can you talk about both, were you surprised that they played so defensively and maybe elaborate on that comment a little bit that that was maybe the best way that they could have beat you? Yeah, I didn't mean it from... a strategy standpoint necessarily i meant it more like controlling the brick not not losing it early and you know you get into those games and get the hammer flipped on yearly it's a big momentum thing um

Matt didn't throw a guard till the 10th end. Yes, I know. I didn't think he was going that route, but like, I mean, I think that their look at the strengths on their team, you know, Ryan Harden was playing good. So he was setting them up. You know, EJ and Colton, you know, two of the best up the middle at throwing bombs. I think if we got into a soft game with them, with Brett and Mark.

They probably don't like their chances. I wouldn't like their chances from what I've seen. And, you know, Matt's got all the shots. So I think they played to their strengths. And I mean, they could have easily won that game. i mean there was i know people were you know boring and four blank ends but there was like there was like seven or eight doubles in the first four ends like we threw a guard every single end run back double brad made two cross house doubles early you know and

We get the blanks. But I thought their strategy, I mean, it worked. They forced us in six. Brad made a beauty on his last. I don't think Matt could have, well, he couldn't have scored there. So Matt hit his last one in seven perfect.

Like you thought it might squirt out, but I said, this is going straight down. It was impossible to make that shot. Hit it perfect through a good rock. You know, that was a good momentum one for us. But as far as the strategy goes, I just feel like, you know, they're a good enough team to get a deuce. You want to close 10 ends is just.

you can't run and hide for 10 ends at high level curling um and they they just you know i've been there we did that a little bit even i remember in 2021 against brendan me and johnny mo and cooey having a beer after the game we were like what are we doing Like we had the hammer, kind of take a little page out of the Bears playbook or the goo, control the board, don't get too crazy, tied up coming home, one down coming home. But then it bit us in seven. Kevin had a pick.

they got three and then we had instant regrets of no rocks in play and what were we doing and i'm sure matt i'll go back and and probably look at that but you know matt's a stud and you know he had a great week and you know he's going to win a prior certainly soon um but you know thankfully for us and our team it wasn't uh sunday um and yeah we played a it doesn't matter who we played an amazing tent then we had eight perfectly placed stones and

when you have the hammer and you make eight in a row twos and threes normally pop up on the scorecard pretty easily it's tough to defend and we just really good tenth like i say we were pretty calm and we were in the zone and we knew what we had to do and i think a little bit of momentum in nine um

I think if you go back, I don't know if Matt's picked or if he just threw a brick there, but on his flash in nine. I mean, if he noses it, we got a real good chance at a force. So that's okay. But if he rolled in like he wanted to roll in.

he was gonna have a chance at a blank and uh that was a big miss for him and then when we had him forced i think the momentum switched like i said after that and i i think we were pretty confident on our side we were getting that deuce in 10 and then it panned out so

I know you mentioned that you didn't have any beers all week and you and Brett had some fun Sunday night and then maybe one last night. I was in the other elite curling competition in Canada this weekend, the PEI Club Championship Provincials.

uh we lost the final so i might have had a few beers before i started watching the final anyway i turned it on and it was uh it was i think it was the fifth end and it was zero zero and i was just mind-blowing and then of course you hear all these you go on twitter and you read all these blank blank blank comments what are your thoughts on that because my opinion my honest opinion is there's such thing as a boring blank and there's such thing as not a boring blank if there's

Eight rocks frozen above the D-line and three rocks later it's empty. That's called skill. That's my opinion. Talk about that because I know the teams are getting shit on a lot for not making it more exciting and all that. What are your thoughts? Well, we threw a guard every end.

yeah like i say matt's game plan like i knew what he was trying to do like they were executing their game plan they had the hammer and it was tied that's always a good spot to be in a big championship game like they probably felt comfortable in that situation and i know on our side we're like hey we got to flip this brick eventually

flip it after nine but it hey on our side you'd love to flip it after five or six i'm not gonna or three you know you know it wasn't like super comforting knowing we were running out of ends but uh the blank situation you know i liked what we did at the slams there even to try to you have to score after one that was that was unique uh to bring that into 10 and curly maybe the time clock is an issue if you're going to throw double centers and corners everything like it is tight

yep a wheel you got a wheel so in the 10-end game they're pretty much saying like run them up and down for two ends to keep your clock good so that we can give some real good entertainment to the fans for the other eight ends so that's a little bit tough um

As far as the blank goes of a boring end or a not boring end, depends what the skips want to do. I mean, yeah, there was a million good doubles in that game, but I mean, blanks are boring for the players too. Don't kid yourself. You know, I like to be in there when there's, there's action and there's a chance to steal or reduce, but.

You know, at the end of the day, it's entertainment, but you're trying to win as a team. If you've got a blanket end to save some time. I think Matt made a, you know, he'll probably look back. You know, he probably should have thrown a guard in the eighth end. That was a...

that was a beautiful blank for us when we we threw it in thinking like okay he's a corner we'll go in and then we'll throw a guard and when he hit it we were all kind of just looking at each other like okay we'll just yeah so that was you know

probably a strategic mistake by him and he doesn't make a lot of those he'll probably you know look back at that one and and want to want to discuss it with his team for the future but um you know we are we're comfortable with one hammer each you know force deuce to win and that's what we got Let's talk about your... You brought them up already. Your kids, more specifically your son, became a bit of a story in the wake of the Briar celebration. He's ripped. Yeah, he's ripped.

he is he is ripped did you know that there was a plan for him to go tarps off in the in the final there no but there's a big story behind it like you know in 08 when we won my brother uh critter and my cousin adam they showed up to our 08 final game in winnipeg painted yellow and blue chest but they were you know this is a long time ago they were pretty ripped too you know so they're jacked up so my son has seen these pictures of my brother his uncle

and his other uncle because my other cousins like my brother too and they're painted up and and at the olympics in vancouver i got great picks all my cousins and they were all like pretty chiseled back in the day until they got into the pines and they were all Canada gear and Hebert and logos. They did full chest paint. And so my son had seen these and he's like, Dad, I want to do that. I'm like, I'm curling. Just leave me alone.

and we get there and i don't i don't see him like i didn't see him until i don't think i even seen him first time i saw it it was on the jumbotron and like seven and he had his little abs painted in and i mean he is cutting hey if i looked like him i wouldn't work you guys think i'd wear a shirt i'd be pushed off all the time so he's he's seven years old loving his life i had

I told my wife I got off the ice. I had 411 text messages. I was looking at my phone. And I bet you half of them talked about my son, Griff, being a stallion. Like, congrats. griff's the man griff stole the show and i'm like oh man what a beauty but no i was hey i was a proud dad he's a great kid is he the second born yeah oh yeah yeah no my daughter's not allowed to go tarps off

We're not running that program around here, boys. I know another second born who would probably rip the tarp off. There you go. He lives in PEI. John, I'm going to let you ask this one. you know anything else happen at the briar like behind the scenes anything fun john you want to jump in uh well i mean i i heard uh i did hear a story ben you probably know i do a little research uh before i have my guests on the show

And I heard that perhaps there was an incident involving a vehicle at the Briar. You maybe got your teammate's truck in a little bit of a dust up. Can you tell us about that?

Tight parking lot. Very tight parking lot at the Delta Grand Kelowna. I was going to get my shirt altered because like... great shirts by the way i will you know props the gold line very nice material but like three quarter length baseball shirts i'm like i don't have that many good qualities on my body they need to breathe they need to breathe

so i went to get him a hike so i'm going to get him altered on like thursday morning i'm like mark i need your keys he throws me his keys i'm wheeling out of the parking lot and i'm just kind of like it's slow like it's a tight little parking lot all of a sudden i hear I'm like, what just happened? I look over this guy. We're like eye to eye. I'm like, did you just hit me? He goes, no, no, you hit me. I'm like, I think you hit me. So as we go out, I give him my ID.

I'm rattled because I crashed Mark's truck, not mine. Worked out. I told the guy, here's my license. Give me a call after. I'm busy for the next 10 days. I told Mark yesterday. I told Mark yesterday, take it to the body shop. Tell me how much it is. I'll email you. And then I said, unless it's too much, don't email me or something. It was a minor detail. Mark took it like a champ. I mean, hey, it's a driving force truck. It's a sponsored truck.

It wasn't a dent. It's a little scratch right on his name. That's what he told me. The name got scratched out. And in the end, I got him the truck so he can... Did the, did the other guy know who you were? Like, were you like, I'm at the briar or at least know like what the briar was? You're like, I'm not a curling guy. No, he was just rattled that we scratched vehicles. Tough way to start the briar. Tough way to start the briar.

Hey, but you had a good way of ending it. So congratulations again, Ben. Thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking some time. I know the glow hasn't worn off yet, but yeah, best of luck at the Worlds as well.

Good luck, Ben. Thanks, boys. There you have it. Always great to hear from Ben. And Robbie, dare I say Ben seemingly... quite lucid this morning that would that was like the i feel like that was the maybe the most serious mode ben i've ever uh i've ever interviewed he he was very uh introspective and uh and it was a great interview i think ben

and rightfully so, is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. Definitely give him... He's got the pass on that. Absolutely well-deserved. He had some great insight, though. It's cool to kind of... you know, have a chat like that with somebody, especially, you know, when they're pretty much still in the moment, you know, I don't think the briars been over for.

48 hours or just about. So pretty cool. And he's pretty proud. I couldn't help but notice that trophy in the background. Yeah, it was great to chat to him. And now we are going to move on to the coach. Paul Webster, his first Briar title as a coach may be a bit of a surprising fact to learn given how much success he had with the national team program over the years. But yeah, first Briar win as a coach. Let's go there now. All right.

Great chat with Ben Hebert. And you know what? You start with the lead and you go right to the top. We are now pleased to be joined by coach of Team Brad Jacobs, Paul Webster. Paul, congratulations, of course. Amazing, amazing win at the Breyer. Your first Breyer win, which is also exciting. We'll get to that in a minute.

but uh i want to go back to the beginning with you because i this is sort of an interesting scenario you were working with curling canada for a long time and then you know got approached to coach the new team botcher decided to leave

got into the business of coaching an individual team. Can you walk me through that process? Were you looking to leave Curling Canada and this kind of fell into your lap at the right time? Or was it just the team that made you want to leave? Or can you kind of, because I feel like a lot. of the fans maybe don't know how this all kind of came together yeah i mean if you can look at the jacket uh ben ben's a pretty good salesman

Betty and I have gone back since 2005. So I started working with Curling Canada in 2004, left teaching in Ontario. um to come here and do my my level four coaching at the ufc and just never left i got uh invited to be part of our olympic coaching staff for the 2006 olympics and then i've been in calgary ever since um benny and i went with pat simmons to carizzo in 2005 or 6. I can't remember the actual year, but I've known that guy for a long time.

and you know after the last quad uh beijing olympics uh it was olympic team leader for that that was my fifth olympics involved with curling canada and i i wouldn't say i was looking for a change but when benny approached say listen we're putting this team together and uh would you consider coaching us um so you know i sat and talked to my wife jen and and just said listen you know it wasn't like there wasn't anything left

with the the national coach job but this is just a a really new challenge um it was funny you know talking to some of our club members here at the glenco club last night um they're like well how many briars is that for you now i'm like that's my first and that was only my like when our first year coaching with uh

uh brendan uh back in london that was my first briar coaching um you know i've been to multiple worlds and olympics and stuff but uh had never coached a national championship funny enough and um off i went so i was brand new to that world and uh super just a whole different realm of coaching you know i talked to

a couple of reporters in the briar and you know you jump on with the curling canada thing you know you jump on the gravy train and the excitement of team canada you show up the the weekend of the briar it's fun and off to the world and you're really um you're taking a team that's

working on all cylinders and then having one of their best events to the next event. So there's not too much exhaustion or stress there, you know, but having been in the trenches with these guys, you know, three of them now for three seasons and this.

whole team for this season man is that win ever such a big um accomplishment i don't want to say relief because we we were expecting to win the briar that's so that's our goal and um but it just it's like i was just exhausted uh at the end of the week and um you know going in and out of the practice ice and and so on with these guys um they they deserve that win yeah obviously the team

The team made a lineup change, obviously, early on or in the offseason. I'm going to let John jump in on that in a moment. But my question is, and I asked the same thing to Ben. I interviewed him at the Slam and Nisku. And I asked about just a little bit of a State of the Union at the time. I believe this was either, I think, early November.

closer to the start of the year and he said they're not you guys weren't where you wanted to be but you know it takes time you have a plan in place and you're you're trying to be as patient as you can and let it all work out it's been two slam finals now you won the briar um are you where you want to be I think so. Not that I think so. Yeah, absolutely. We knew we had the lineup right. We, you know, with the change and skip, you're bringing in a proven winner. But then you have to create.

that team dynamic and relationships. in those high pressure moments are so important and it takes time to develop those and it takes time to enhance and refine those relationships so you can perform in the moments like the briar final and You know, I know there's still percentage points on the board for these guys. And I'm hoping to see those at the World Championships. But again, our goal when we put this team together last...

last May was basically to peak for the Olympic trials and then go to Italy and get on the podium for Canada. So this is just a really great win along the way. and you know i like the skip we have right now in terms of his history of winning the briar the year before the olympics um and i want to i i i was there in 2013 with him in bc funny enough in victoria when when we had the World Championships and I'd love to head off to another Olympics with Brad and get on the podium.

Yeah, let's talk about that because I think that was the biggest news of the curling offseason. Obviously, there were a lot of changes, but probably none bigger than... the decision to move on from Brendan Botcher and pick up Brad Jacobs. You know, I've said this on pods before.

You know, there was a time last year where you were the number one team in the world. So you're talking about taking the number one skip in the world off of the team. Were you involved in that decision at all? You know, I know you're very ingrained with the guys. I'm sure, you know, there are some. coaches where their level of involvement is kind of, you know, they come to some tournaments, but not all of them, whatever, like you are very much.

ingrained in this team a part of this team were you involved in that decision at all or was it more kind of brought to you and you were asked your opinion did your opinion matter can you kind of walk us through that Yeah, I got a call at the end of the Players' Championship, and the boys were like, this is what we're thinking, these are the options on the table, and it was funny, when they set it all out,

I'm like, guys, it actually makes sense to me. I understand what you're in. You know, Benny's like, oh, you're going to be sort of the voice of reason. They have a ton of respect for Brendan Botcher, as do I. Brendan's a really good friend. I think he's still one of our top young skips in the game. And, you know, they knew it was tough. I think that had Brendan not been the person he is, it would have been an easy decision.

um but man they they spent a long time making sure the decision was made properly with respect to brendan and and what he brings to the table and you know you go back to sport if there's any other sport um we're not talking about trading a first line center for a first line center and what a big deal it is you're just trying to win um you know the toronto maple leafs asked mitch marner to put his uh no trade clause up at the dead

line and they're trying to get me go around and then i was like wow that would be pretty cool to see that mix we just did the same thing and um we know we took a first line center and trade him for a first line center And Brad Jacobs was there last year playing really well. He wanted to sort of get onto a different team and increase his chances of winning.

I think it's shown this year the different levels of intensity. I just got a great text from John Morse this morning just saying, wow, it was really cool to see the guys playing like I feel they should. And they just looked.

more comfortable and you know chemistry is a a weird thing with with teams like that like you need in a curling team you need four individuals that can perform with each other um you know 100 of the time we're given 25 and it's super important that those relationships work and you feel like you can perform the last two years with brendan you nailed it like we did really really well and there was just that um sort of feeling in the background for the guys that um

they weren't going to achieve what they wanted to in the next two years. So they, they made a trade and I respect them for that. It's the easier decision was to go status quo and not change. It would have been.

everyone would have understood it um so they had to ask or answer more questions and it was way way more stressful to to make that change and to make that phone call to brendan and meet up with him and and just say listen it's it it wasn't going in the direction we wanted it to or felt it was going to um and then i think that win at the briar you could see the there's part of relief for sure like we made the right decision and um i don't have any

uh qualms of brendan botcher is going to win multiple more briars um but for brad jacobs and and ben hebert and brett collant and mark kendy right now uh this is the time they wanted to win one What were some of the qualities you were looking for or looking to get out of Brad Jacobs when he joined the team? Is there anything in particular like the team just felt we were missing and this guy can bring it to us?

i don't know i can't remember if you guys have had brendan on the show but you've had brad recently um yeah brendan too we had both of them actually yeah so they're they're completely different people um right you are just kidding yeah yeah i think my kids might watch this so um sorry they don't always swear but yeah no it's all good no you guys swear away um right is right um

But it's a completely different dynamic. And again, when you get that dynamic, there is a concern there. There's a worry about whether that will work. When you see that celebration... when they won that briar championship there's you know 10 years of release with brad jacobs there's you know six years for ben and mark wherever that was i can't remember um Brett left the reigning Briar champs to join this team and move to Alberta.

and you just saw the chemistry the chemistry is is just it's just a different team and so there was a huge risk in in changing your skip um and reference to get that um but there's also what that we just saw there was huge reward as well

And we're not done. So, you know, we've got three weeks until we're off to Moose Jaw. And then, you know, winning the Briar was one of those pieces of the puzzle we wanted along this two-year cycle with the team to give us the best chance to win the Olympic trials. I want to talk about Brad specifically. You know, I think a lot of what we hear from the rest of the team, we hear leadership, we hear chemistry.

But those are kind of nebulous terms. I mean, you're the coach of the team. You maybe have the best view of this, of anyone. Can you be a little more specific about what Brad has brought to the team? Like when we say things like lead. and we say things like chemistry, what does that mean? What does that look like exactly?

You know, his biggest thing is he wants to win games for his guys. He was really intent at the start when he joined this team to make sure he got to know his new players, their families. What makes them tick? Those questions continually come out in team calls, just checking in on people. I know he's behind the scenes doing the same thing one on one.

And then he's very old. I've been around a lot of championship teams and I find skips all have different qualities and so on. But most of them are, you know, they're often their own little islands.

because they're so good at making last shots and they have different qualities it would love the most of us myself included just can't connect with um and that's what makes them great is they're just you know they have their own ways of winning and so on i think What's interesting about Brad, you saw that one shot against Reed Crothers where we're peeling a guard and he pretty much noses it in a Briar playoff game.

um a lot of skips we would find reasons for why that happened and it would include their name brad's like boys i broke my wrist like i So you're not dancing around. Eating the chickens. Yeah, you're not dancing around. So that human quality with him, you're able to leave that game.

which we won but you're also able to move into the next end and that acknowledgement and ownership of his mistake is just there so you there's no dancing around it and and sometimes you know depending on the skip and so on you've got to create a a false sense of um reality to ensure we have a chance to meet uh to make the next uh shot or make get the next win and with brad it's like yeah no you did and off we go um

I really respect that about him, and he's an easy athlete to coach in that way. He's super open to input from all of his teammates, his coach included. And you have to be careful what you say because he'll make it his own. And, you know, if you say this is what we need to do to improve or win, he's 100% in.

I'm kind of having one of those aha moments just based on around a few things that you've said in this interview, things that we've all known. But I guess when you hear it from the horse's mouth, it's like, wow, like Brad or sorry, Brett Gallant left the reigning Briar champions. I've never thought of it like that before.

moved across the country to play with this team. You made that skipping change where you got rid of one player and brought in someone who had to leave their team. There's been a lot of sacrifice made. to be where you are right now the reigning briar champions getting ready for the world's olympics one year away is there anything else in your opinion as the coach that needs to be done or do you is there any change not i don't want to say changes but any really

I guess what I'm saying is, do you feel like you're good enough right now to go get that gold medal at the Worlds and win the trials next year? Or is there still some work to be done? I absolutely believe we have the chance to win a gold medal at the Worlds this year. I think the Olympics is going to be tougher because all those same teams that already know they're going to the Olympics next year are also trying to get better. So do I believe this version of Team Jacobs right now?

has the ability to win a gold medal at the olympics next year no i don't i actually think we need to get better however i know i've got four guys that also understand they need to get better so we're trying to find those half percentage points our best games at the uh at the briar this this um this last event would definitely uh win the olympics force the interesting is we've got a string together about 10 or 12 of those in a row Well, it's going to be a crazy event. And that's the difference.

with the olympics is everyone's peaking at the same time canada does it a little bit differently i actually really respect the way we have and the depth we have um but you know bruce moan knows he's off the olympics next year so he's preparing for that right now

I haven't, you know, if you listen to my focus, we want to win the Olympic trials. And then it's not like we're forgetting that the Olympics are there. But that's a huge hurdle in the way of the Olympics. And guys like Brad Gushu and Matt Dunstone and... Crothers and Kevin Cooley are all going to say we're doing the same thing. So we've got to string together those 10, 11, 12 games at the Olympic trials.

Whatever team wins the Olympic trials, and I 100% believe it's going to be us, is going to be ready to win a gold medal for Canada. I want to ask you a bit about... the modern coach in curling because i again i think the curling fan maybe doesn't necessarily know

what you're doing per se, you know? And like I said, I think there's different ways of attacking coaching, right? Like there's a few teams like Kevin Cooey and Matt Dunstone where their coach is more like a sports psychologist, um, or in Matt Dunstone's case also as Caleb.

flaxy who we know is a good curling coach but it's also very analytics driven with him he's a stats guy um you know and then there's other teams that kind of just bring on a coach for the briar because they go hey well we gotta you know we gotta bring someone you know and you're there almost every event and so I'm curious you know what is your

role with team Jacobs and what would you say is sort of like in your mind the role of a modern curling coach in general because I think there are probably people who don't exactly know what it is that you're doing with the team on sort of a day-to-day week-to-week basis yeah it's a great question i think every every team has a different need um you know my strength is

always been in the in the technical uh area for sure i i think i'm one of the best technical coaches out there like if you've got a concern with your curling delivery or you simply want to improve and make more shots i have 100 confidence i can i can do that at a pretty high level um so that was one thing when ben grabbed me he's like we just don't want anyone to have uh access to you um so that's one of the reasons he wanted me is um we don't want you helping other teams get better

the one thing i love doing with these guys as adult males is just getting them to talk so we work a ton on just communication and you know i think they get frustrated they'll share something with me about one of their teammates And I say probably, you know, 25 times an event. Well, have you said that to him? And they're like, oh, Webby. Yeah, OK, I will. And then they get it. Right. But those relationships that we need, they need to improve and get better and pushing.

guys to communicate and their partners at home will back me up on this one. You know, it's not easy sometimes. That's where I've loved watching their relationships get stronger. And, you know, we had some great conversations at the Briar after.

tricky wins and easy wins um one of the highlights for me was when uh you know mark candy said to brett like listen i just want to acknowledge your energy on the ice this past game uh was amazing like unbelievable teammate it ensured i had the ability to throw 90.95 And that's what we're acknowledging. I watch a lot of athletes out there, male and female, and it is fascinating to watch their reactions, their body language and what they say.

on a sheet of curling ice in pressure-filled moments that is just so horribly ugly to watch and then their teammates supposed to uh perform despite that so i've called um you know part of my job i believe is to call their a lot of times like listen when you said or did that were you actually expecting that to help your teammate And, you know, their answer has to be no.

we we joke around a lot of times uh and i can't remember who i stole this from is um out there we've got options in life when we're performing in a team and we can be minus ones and detract from your performance we can zeros and just be neutral or we can be a plus one so one of our adages on our team is just be a plus one

at the very least be a zero but man when you say that out loud today you know what i'm not feeling great so at the very least i'm going to be a zero today well jesus christ um it's hard not to then say what am i doing i might as well

be a plus one right like if my goal today is just to be a zero and you know i'll throw my 90 but you know the other three guys good luck um so you know that that part we've had temper tantrums out there we've had guys frustrated um but their uh their ability to move on brad as you know is just um every once in a while he'll just say random and uh today you know before game we'll go

before a game we'll go around say okay what do we focus on this and we go around and everyone's got some pieces that we've been focusing on and want to make sure we're doing for this game and i think it was the first playoff game or maybe the second and brad just like uh canada goose and i we're overlooking the lake in cologne i'm like is there just a goose out there that he saw because no i want to play loose as a goose right and that so then that became

but for the guys are like great so there's a few moments in the next two or three games where it was stressful and we're just like honk and we're like oh yeah right and then everyone's like oh yeah honk And then there's like, you know, Anaheim Mighty Ducks movie, like we want to have the flying V and...

um but that ability to just enjoy those moments um so that even that side was instead of being really um focused on psychology and so on that ability is like yeah you know we're supposed to be loose um just ensuring we're we all want to make the shots they all want to play 95 but there's going to be games when they don't and when they don't bring their own individual performance i expect them to focus on their teammates performance because they have

such an ability to enhance that performance more importantly if they they have an ability to detract from that performance and that's what we want to get away from last question for me for me paul i i just want to say this is a really cool interview it's really cool to hear from a coach's perspective we've never really done this before and i just really enjoyed the answers i feel like i learned a lot and speaking of learning a lot um you know you you were kind of the

at least in Canada, kind of the first real full-time curling coach, you know, you left. you're like a job with curling candidate really focus on this one team and i think it's just the start of of many i think as the game improves it's just going to be needed um to get to that top level and i'm just thinking of someone who lives here um he's a young kind of hungry uh guy wants to get in get into coaching more seriously and he's a big fan of yours actually

His name is Lincoln. And anyway, if you could kind of, I just think of him when I ask you this, if you could give a piece of advice to someone like that who says, you know what? I tried curling. I love the game. I don't think I want to play, but. There's something about coaching that really attracts me. What advice would you give them? I would say get out and get involved. I mean, my...

my sort of mentors and stuff in the game were jim wait and jerry peckham i met jim at a really young age i was 18. the first trillion curling camp was in my hometown of peterborough and then we had won the the juniors that year and uh went off to canadians and jim invited me to be part of the staff there so i got to work you know in almost like

that wasn't oh man that's a long time ago um like 95 96 but i probably worked 18 straight summers at the trillion curling camp and white cap curling camps and four foot curling camps with elaine dag jackson but then all the coaches you imagine that i've been able to work with throughout that uh keith wendorf and ron myers and wayne kyle andrea ronabek jen ferris

there's honestly i could give you a list of what i think are the top 50 coaches in in the world and i've had the you know the ability and opportunity to work with them and learn from them so that you know that ability out there and work and just just volunteer with you have to do a lot of free work and curling before you can get paid badly um so getting out there and just learning how to

take a slide and fix it there's so many times i go back and the stuff that i would have said in my 20s to someone to fix their slide man i probably ruined them right there's probably people not there's probably people not curling because i'm like oh try this But now, you know, after looking at... Yeah. After looking at thousands of deliveries, man. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

of course i don't hear from them because they're not playing um but now it's it's really cool when you're able to take someone like um you know brett and i had a epiphany this year with a little technical thing of his and it just worked so you know working on working with someone of that caliber to help them increase their game and you know they're um the the way we practice i think is

the best in Canada in terms of individual and team practices. And, you know, Brad wasn't too sure what we're up to when I tried to ascribe to what we work on, how we practice in April, May. But now that he's bought in, he... He believes he's throwing the rock better than he ever has.

and you can just see it um you know so it's not the it's not the games where you go out and throw 95 it's those consistent games where we're trying to make sure their lowest level is is at 85 and bringing bringing up that basement as opposed to there

They've always seen the peaks and so on, but it's that consistency. But, you know, going back to your buddy and PI, just get out there, ask questions. Most curling clubs are looking for people. You know, there's an association of curling pros out there. that rob kreps is heading up with curling canada that ability now to you know become an accredited pro would be uh something i would look into as well

Very cool. And just tell the boys that going back to the Mighty Ducks conversation, I actually curled a game with Gunnar Stahl, who was the captain for Team Iceland in the second one. Curling runs deep in the Mighty Ducks. Yeah. Honk. Honk. Okay, last one from me, Paul. I think, you know, with you guys going to the worlds now, you talked about...

how many times you've been to the Worlds as part of the Curling Canada team program and kind of meeting a team where they're at after they win the Scotties or the Briar or win the Olympic trials. Now you're in the program. You're with this. team how is it looked different how do you think it's going to look different now that you're like the guy that's going to worlds with a team as opposed to curling canada's guy that's going to the worlds with a team

It's a completely different experience. I think you feel you've earned it. I actually feel I've earned it. Right. So you're there in the trenches. And this is what we talk about it all the time. Before I knew I was going to the world championships. So it was blocked off in the schedule. It's all good. I think my wife did. My wife.

my wife is a full-time uh surgeon she her job is crazy she makes me super proud of her on a regular basis in terms of life she changes um she doesn't really watch curling um i think it was just a few months ago she goes so You might not go to the Olympics then, this time. Like, she just clicked. I'm like, no, we have to win for me to go. She goes, oh, so that decision to leave curling candle, that was a pretty big one, right?

it was massive right um but man like having been there with these boys to win that briar um it's a completely different role And I think, you know, to be brutally honest, I'm not sure if I had as much respect as I should have for those team coaches in the past. I don't want to apologize because I think there was just not that.

it was just pure ignorance and as innocent as it can be having not been in that type of role and um i think everyone should have an opportunity to coach a team a scotties or briar um because man when when that win like i have never been so exhausted and relieved and happy over a win and i've um i've been there at olympics uh with multiple gold medals being won and and so on um and your relief for the athlete i was relieved for myself like

And that, you know, there's so much stress on the decisions you made. And even that final game, you know, we were tiptoeing around some strategy stuff. And Brad, like I said, he is open to input.

and when he looks at and goes do you like this and then i'm like oh man yes and because you know it's going to be listened to so our you know the the the decision go in into the house in the eighth end um he wants everyone on board um so if i was to say no at that moment he probably would not of done that um everyone's on board and and when that works out you're like oh like that is what what a game to be a part of

I think I'm super humbled to be part of this team with the resumes that they have. But I'm super excited that we just add another line to these guys' resumes. Brad deserved another Breyer, as did Mark, Brett, and Ben. The amount that these guys work and how hard and talented they are, I hope this is just one of many wins that's going to come for this team.

Love it. Well, thank you, Paul. Uh, congratulations again, your first Briar win. Uh, what a feeling hopefully that keeps going at the worlds. Uh, but yeah, this was a great chat. I know the fans will love it and we appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much guys.

Congrats, Webby. Cheers. All right. Thank you so much to Paul and to Ben. As you said, Robbie, less than 48 hours after their Briar win as we're recording this on Tuesday morning. Really appreciate both of them taking the time and just both have. having a great perspective on the win already. Sometimes this quick of a turnaround, you don't necessarily have the wherewithal to put it into words, but I thought those were two.

Great interviews. Awesome to hear from, from both of those guys. Good interviews and different interviews. That's what I liked about them. It was really cool to hear it from a coaching coach's perspective. And Paul was, you know, he'll be looking.

you know, he'll go in the history books as sort of a pioneer is somebody who was pretty much the first, I think to, and I don't know the details about payment or anything like that, but, but he left a job, joined one team and he's their coach. So, you know, I would say probably the first true professional team coach in the game. And just to kind of hear that from him was really cool. I know I'm going to be corrected on that by...

No, yeah, it was awesome. I loved having Paul on the show. Been a big fan of his and a friend. He brought up Four Foot Curling Camp. That was when I first met Paul. I was a counselor at Four Foot in 2004. And that was the first time I met Paul. And we've been friends ever since. Great guy. Not surprising to see him have success as a coach. Now, Robbie, this has been a jam-packed episode of the show.

two interviews that went long. We had to get our Briar recap in. So normally we play a game here, but I have a little bit of a different twist this week. The game is you have to sign off the podcast and then we're leaving. Okay. Well, hope you enjoyed yourself, ladies and gentlemen. There you heard it. Briar champions, Ben Heber, coach Paul Webster joining us.

What a couple of weeks of curling it's been. The Scotties, a little week off, then the Breyer. Women's World's coming up. It's a good time to be a fan. For my good friend, John Cullen, I'm Robbie Doherty. We'll see you next time on The Boot Brothers.

That's the man right there. Hey, that was really good. That was really good. Follow us everywhere on Broom Brothers. And if you want to see the video of this episode, it is up on our YouTube and we will see you back here in a couple of weeks. Thanks, Robbie. Thanks, everyone. Bye.