It’s been a remarkable two curling seasons for Team Homan – and they have some Olympic demons to exorcise
HALIFAX – In the end, the dominant women’s fours team of the past two seasons was not to be denied.
Rachel Homan of Ottawa qualified for her third consecutive Olympic Winter Games on Saturday afternoon with a blistering 12-3 win over Christina Black of Halifax at the 2025 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials.
It was the second straight win over Black for the Homan team as they captured Curling Canada’s new best-of-three playoff series outright, after scoring a wild 5-4 victory in Game 1 on Friday.
On Saturday, the ice conditions stayed true throughout the game, and it was all Homan.
Showing no fear, Black came to play and was aggressive from the start. However, Homan used her hammer to score two.
Both teams went at each other in the second end. Black third Jillian Brothers made a come around to lie three, with two on the button. Homan followed and was a touch heavy, and Black threw a guard – should she have come in?
Homan tried to go around wide but kissed the guard, and Black then missed a difficult draw for three points, tying the game 2-2.
In the third end, the Nova Scotians got into serious trouble. Homan’s first throw came a tad heavy, giving Black a chance to escape damage with a good freeze, but she threw her final stone wide and heavy.
Homan made a come-around tap to score four, good for a 6-2 lead.
The television cameras caught Homan in visible relief, as she let out a breath of air before heading down the sheet.
Despite the crowd’s efforts to rally their team, the Black crew were challenging a machine. In the fifth end, after a superb draw from Black, Homan latched a perfect freeze onto her counter and ended up stealing a point, moving to 7-2.
It was all over by the sixth end as Homan stole another two points. The game ended with handshakes after eight ends, with the score 12-3.
It’s been a remarkable two seasons for Homan, Tracey Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes – they’ve won two world championships, multiple Grand Slam titles and clocked a spectacular 117-16 won/loss record in that time.
And they have some Olympic demons to exorcise.
At the 2021 Olympic Trials, Lawes skipped a Winnipeg foursome and went undefeated up until the extra-end of the championship final – but Fleury missed her final shot against Jennifer Jones for the trip to Beijing.
At that Trials, Homan and Miskew finished last at 2-6. The pair, teammates since age 11, had previously gone 4-5 at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, and Homan also missed the mixed doubles playoffs with John Morris at Beijing 2022.
The Homan team will not defend their Canadian (Scotties) women’s championship title, due to the tight timeline between that late January event and the start of the Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Following the provincial championships in December and early January, a Team Canada will be appointed based on CTRS (Canadian Team Ranking System) points.
As Team Canada, the Homan squad will open the 25th Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Feb. 12, against Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont.
The mixed doubles discipline starts Feb. 4 in Cortina, with Canada represented by Jocelyn Peterman and her husband Brett Gallant.
Gallant and Calgary’s Team Jacobs will attempt to win a second straight playoff game against Winnipeg’s Matt Dunstone tonight at Scotiabank Centre (7:00 p.m. Atlantic) to become Canada’s men’s fours team at Cortina.
Team Homan finished 8-1 to Black’s 8-6. Kerri Einarson’s foursome placed third at 6-2, while teams skipped by Kaitlyn Lawes and Selena Sturmay finished 4-3.
Kayla Skrlik, the skip of the only women’s team to defeat Homan during the round robin, finished 2-5 while Kate Cameron and Corryn Brown wound up at 1-6.