With gold medal around his neck, Canadian skip Jacobs has a message for the haters

Sporting an Olympic gold medal after conquering a strong field while keeping the many distractions at bay, Canada's Brad Jacobs came out firing shortly after stepping off the podium.

He guided Canada to a 9-6 win over Great Britain's Bruce Mouat in a final that will go down as a classic between the top two teams in the world.

The win came a week after Canada vice Marc Kennedy used profanity during an in-game discussion with Sweden's Oskar Eriksson, who felt the Canadians were committing an infraction by 'double-touching' curling stones. It snowballed into one of the major buzz stories of the Games.

For Jacobs, all of the buildup was finally released in a post-game news conference.

"For anyone who called us cheaters, for anyone who said negative things about Marc Kennedy, about us, about Canada, about our families, I hope that the image of us standing on top of the podium, embracing one another, smiling ear to ear with our gold medals, is burned into your brain forever," he said.

Brad Jacobs earns his 2nd Olympic curling gold medal and Canada's 1st since his win in 2014

A day after the Canada-Sweden game, World Curling issued a rule clarification and statement. It noted that curlers were not allowed to touch the granite after releasing the handle.

Additional umpires were stationed near the hog lines and two curlers — including Canadian women's skip Rachel Homan — had rocks pulled. The sport's governing body backtracked the next day.

"It didn't seem like they were prepared for what went down," Jacobs said.

"It didn't seem like officials were prepared to officiate it properly. And so it was a little bit of a mess."

Unlike sports where officials follow the play or make calls when appropriate, curlers are usually left to