How it unfolded
Canada fielded what amounted to an all-star lineup: skip Brad Jacobs alongside Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert, with Kennedy and Hebert both members of Kevin Martin's 2010 Vancouver gold-medal team. Their final opponents were Bruce Mouat's Great Britain, reaching a second straight Olympic final after 2022 Beijing. The match stayed balanced into the middle ends before Canada scored three in the ninth to pull away. In the tenth, Mouat needed a draw to force an extra end, but the stone drifted slightly wide, and Canada stole a point to close the match 9-6. Jacobs won his second Olympic gold, following Sochi 2014, becoming the first men's skip to hold two Olympic titles, and Kennedy and Hebert also picked up a second gold medal 16 years after their first.
Why it still matters
This was Canadian men's curling reclaiming gold after 12 years, and an answer to a stretch without a men's world title since 2017. The same day, Rachel Homan's Canadian women's team took bronze, and in the women's final Anna Hasselborg's Sweden beat Switzerland 6-5. Two months later, Niklas Edin retired in Ogden after an eighth world title, and 2026 is remembered as the year the sport's top generation changed over almost entirely.