Well, the jokes were fun
As enervating as it was to see Canada’s mixed doubles trials knocked out due to an increasingly infectious assortment of Greek letters, it was decidedly more fun to joke about them waiting so long to declare their team. Their first game is in three weeks.
It might’ve been more fun as an American because it does not affect me much from a rooting perspective. We’re gonna hope Vicky and Chris get the W against you anyway. But selecting a candidate by committee rather than by competition was complicated. And on top of that, they just had to go and pick the most complicated team, didn’t they?
Homan/Morris certainly has the most Olympic experience of any team—three trips, two golds. You could argue there were teams more accomplished based on the merits of the season. And we did argue. But the argument is over.
Now the Scotties are impacted as CurlON’s contingency plan kicks in with Hollie Duncan’s team representing the province in Thunder Bay. And it means Team Homan is the third-ranked squad in the CTRS among teams who didn’t qualify for the Scotties, less than three points shy of Chelsea Carey—solely because the Ontario Scotties were also cancelled, but Saskatchewan’s was not. Had Sasky picked their team, they’d have gone with Carey and Homan would instead be playing Tracy Fleury for the Wild Card spot with, I don’t know, Emma Miskew or Alli Flaxey at skip.
And now allegiances are realigned. Morris helped coach Australia’s tandem to the country’s—and hemisphere’s—first Olympic curling bonspiel. Now he will curl against them (on February 6, mark your calendars). Maybe Nancy Martin and Tyrel Griffith are available to coach them.
But as is the case with many games, it’s about the journey and not the destination. (We tell ourselves this after an outcome we didn’t want.) We had our jokes and we will cherish those jokes for life. The team has been picked. It was worth the wait for Homan and Morris to let the decision play out. Best of luck to them.
For the rest of us, the next journey is waiting to see if they’re really going to pull off a Winter Olympics too.
The next Greek letter after omicron is pi. It would be irrational to assume no surprises.