Load of expectations in Saskatoon

The rapid pace of today’s media landscape allows for breaking news to quickly arrive and fade from the public eye. A few examples of items you may have missed in the past few months are—UFOs are real, female condors are evolving without males, three men won a million dollars impersonating a woman, and SpaceX has a plumbing problem.

(I didn’t say important news, I said breaking news.)

This fast-paced hamster wheel of a news cycle allowed event organizers to quietly drop “Roar of the Rings” from the name of Canada’s quadrennial curling cornucopia without nary a peep. Where are the investigative sports journalists when we need them? Did Peter Jackson come forward with a lawsuit? Has a licensing agreement with the Tolkien family expired? 

I suspect the psychics and voodoo shamans enlisted by Curling Canada advised to release the name in order to shake the cursed monkey claw they received from the “only-one-curling-medal-and-not-the-ones-we-expect” Olympic Winter Games of 2018.

You will hear no argument from me over this change. If this behavior had continued, Canadians could become known for naming sporting teams or events from movies (see “Raptors”) more than our charming habit of uttering “eh” or “sorry.” Of greater importance than dropping the reference to Lord of the Rings is the execution of a first-class event in order to identify the teams with the strongest of shoulders on which the weight of a nation and its curling governing body will reside for the following three months.

Pressure mounts at the Canadian Curling Trials, often delivering unexpected results. It’s possible that 2018 may have been the first year in which two favorites came out as victors. Zero medals in PyeongChang was the result, although you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would point fingers and say “so-and-so” would have been better prepared than Kevin Koe or Rachel Homan to wear the maple leaf in 2018.

Who is likely to carry the load of expectations to Beijing in February? Let’s find out, with an examination of the nine-team women’s field (watch these pages for the men’s, coming soon).

Every four years since 2009 I’ve prepared an Olympic Trials preview using results between competitors. I look at head to head wins and losses, scoring and I examine winning percentages for both historical (lifetime of each skip) and the last Olympic cycle (start of the 2018-19 season) while weighing analysis more heavily on the past four years. Using Bill James’ log5 method and his Pythagorean expectation, I estimate the expected wins of each team. Where sample sizes are small (McCarville, Harrison, Rocque) more guesswork is required.

The result is an attempt to place teams into four groups: Favourites, Contenders, Challengers and Underdogs. I remind the reader that past results do not necessarily predict future outcomes, so don’t complain to me if you had Glenn Howard winning in 2009 or four years later in 2013. All gambling odds are taken from Coolbet as of November 14.

In the women’s field, four skips are returning to the Trials after appearing in 2017. They are defending champion Rachel Homan, 2013 champion Jennifer Jones, Krista McCarville and Casey Scheidegger. Val Sweeting finished 4-4 last time around as a skip, and returns as third for two-time Canadian champion Kerri Einarson. Kate Cameron, third for Laura Walker, was 2-6 in 2017 with skip Michelle Englot. Tracey Fleury, the betting favorite heading into the event, is appearing in her first Trials.

In contrast to the men, many of these teams have not often played each other. This is due to some teams competing with lighter schedules but it’s also due to higher ranked international teams appearing in Grand Slams in recent years. Since the 2018-19 season, Homan, Einarson, Fleury and Jones have been more likely to battle Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg or Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni than Jacqueline Harrison or Kelsey Rocque.

FAVORITES

Based on head-to-head data, there might only be one favorite in this event, but it didn’t work out in 2013 ... so I’ll hedge prognostications with a couple more teams.

Currently at +170, Coolbet has Team Tracy Fleury as a whopping 37% likely to win. They are 29-23 against the field in the past four seasons, with a 1-4 record against Scheidegger. Historically, Tracy is under .500 (63-78) and struggles against Homan (7-28 overall and 3-7 in the last four seasons). Team Fleury’s point differential is zero, so perhaps they tend to win close games and lose not so close contests? 

Two Grand Slam wins, a final appearance and two semi-finals in the past three seasons indicates they are ready, but Trials and the national “Scotties” are different beasts. Fleury reached the STOH 3 vs 4 page playoff game in 2018 and 2019, losing both in undramatic fashion and this is her first appearance at the Trials.

Based on their record against this field, Expected Wins (EW) is 4.4. I suspect this is low and recent success favors a playoff spot at the very least.

Two-time defending Scotties champions Team Kerri Einarson is 40-29 over the past four seasons (58-74 overall). Remove the 10-1 record versus Scheidegger and Rocque, and her recent record drops to 30-28 (52%). Betting odds have them at 26% likely to win.

They won the Players’ Championship last April but have not appeared sharp this season.

The Trials is similar to a Scotties in some ways (large venue, stretched out schedule) but also like a Grand Slam, in that small mistakes committed early will be punished. Teams at the Scotties can sometimes ease into the week while the Trials rarely provides this opportunity. Einarson takes on Fleury in the opening draw on Saturday. That is a statement game that could have playoff implications down the road.

Team Rachel Homan is the number one favorite based on head-to-head results. Rachel is 130-51 overall against the field and 40-19 since the 2018-19 season; both exceed a 70% winning percentage. No other team is greater than 60%, except for McCarville (61%) in only 18 games since 2018-19. They have a 1.6 point per game differential in the last four years. Only Einarson comes close (.99) and McCarville is the only other team above zero (.39). Jones is the only team that holds their own (24-22 overall and 8-8 recently).

Homan could be 3-0 heading into a Tuesday match-up with Fleury. With odds at +300, Homan is expected to win this event once in every four attempts. With six Expected Wins and a likely playoff berth, those odds are better than we’ll likely see later in the week. I can only wonder what the odds would be if Rachel had pulled off a win against eventual winner Anna Hasselborg in their quarterfinal at The National two weeks ago.

CONTENDERS

Team Jennifer Jones has been a Favorite in this event since 2005. The past four years have seen her struggle at times when compared to the high mark of her historic achievements. Since winning her sixth Scotties title in 2018, Jennifer has been in the mix but has failed to reach the finals. She is 95-69 overall but only 25-34 since 2018-19 (42%) with her point differential an astonishing -.68 over that stretch. Team Jones have failed to qualify for the playoffs in three of the last four Grand Slams, and only reached the finals in two of the last 14, with no title wins.

There is no doubt the 2013 Trials and Olympic champion can do it again. As often happens to athletes towards the latter stages of their career, the hill appears much harder to climb. Will Jennifer be like Jeff Stoughton or Glenn Howard at the 2013 Trials (combined 5-9) or closer to Kevin Martin, who finished at 6-1 in 2013 and lost the semifinal?

When blending overall records, Expected Wins is 4.6, but looking at the past four years of point differential gives us only 3.5 wins, the widest variability in the analysis. With 12.8 total points per game, 1.5 above the average and nearly a point above Team Rocque, the safest bet is that Jones will provide entertainment for the fans.

CHALLENGERS

Is this the year and event where Team Krista McCarville transforms from an underrated spoiler squad to an actual champion? Hers is not a touring team and the Northern Ontarians play far fewer games than their peers, but Krista is .500 against this field (38-38) and has won 11 of her last 18.

Homan is her only nemesis. McCarville has only one victory in 16 attempts against the defending champs and she’ll need at least one more, and probably two, in order to win this event.

Expected Wins is over 4.5 and if not for the small sample size, I’d have them ranked a Contender rather than Challenger. Like many, I’m cheering for them to continue their strong play seen at the Pre-Trials and looking for good odds during the week, but it’s doubtful they will be Beijing-bound.

Team Laura Walker had an exciting run at the 2021 Scotties. After starting 5-3, her Alberta squad reeled off five straight wins to make the semifinal. However, their record is only 17-28 (38%) against this field over the past four years, including 5-17 against the Favourites. Their performance in games three through six against Jones, Einarson, Homan and Fleury will likely determine their fate.

Team Walker reached the quarterfinals of The National, their only Grand Slam event played since before COVID-19, and their path included a victory over Einarson. Sometimes a team is up and coming until—like Brad Jacobs at the 2013 Brier and Trials—they reach another level.

Team Casey Scheidegger was up and coming when they won the 2017 Canadian Open in their first-ever Grand Slam appearance. Casey was 3-5 at the 2017 Trials but hasn’t played much recently. If her squad can shake off their rust from the Trials Direct-Entry event, they could be a surprise playoff team. 

Many have forgotten the 2019 Scotties, where they defeated future champion Einarson in the Wild Card game and narrowly missed the playoffs, finishing 7-4 (after a 6-1 start). Scheidegger is 33-49 overall and 17-24 since the 2018-19 season, but if one removes her seven losses to Einarson (with only that single Wild Card win) they are 16-17 against everyone else. A dark horse team that could battle for a playoff spot.

UNDERDOGS

Team Jacqueline Harrison has played only 13 games against this field in past four seasons. At 2-11, their only bright spot is a victory over Einarson. Harrison hasn’t appeared in a Grand slam since December 2018 and an Ontario finals loss to Homan in 2017 is the closest she’s been to reaching a Scotties national. Expected wins is around 2.5 and I’d likely bet the under if it was available.

Team Kelsey Rocque has a winning record against Kerri Einarson (6-5) but is 3-25 combined against Homan, Jones and Fleury. Her teams score nearly 2.5 points less than their opponents, which does not bode well for their chances. The two-time world junior champion skip has yet to translate her early success into the women’s ranks, but she finally reached a Grand Slam semifinal (after 17 attempts) for the first time this season, and her relatively new front-enders—Dana Ferguson and Rachel Brown—are experienced veterans.

Kelsey seemed poised to make a leap at the 2020 Alberta Provincials but faltered late, giving Laura Walker an opportunity to gain experience and make her run at the 2021 Scotties. That front end lineup change kept Rocque from securing a Wild Card spot at the 2021 STOH, but perhaps this new squad can exceed expectations.