IT’S NO JOKE: HOMAN’S A HOOT
Skip might look as cold as a curling sheet, but she has her Ontario rink in stitches
For the love of spinning granite, why is Rachel Homan always so serious?
If you’ve tuned in to any Scotties Tournament of Hearts curling coverage this decade — or, more specifically, this week — that question probably has crossed your mind every time you’ve seen Homan’s Ontario champions play.
She always appears so stern, so steely, so stoic. Most folks extrapolate and believe the 27-year-old must be that way away from the rink, too. Well, wrong. Seriously. “People have no idea that she is probably one of the funniest people you will ever meet,” Team Ontario’s first-year coach Adam Kingsbury said.
We’ve all seen Homan’s blazing blue eyes burn holes through the stones she stares down 40 yards away as she explodes out of the hack — crouched low, sliding statue-still — to destroy the faint hope for victory a rival team offers up at the other end.
Such piercing concentration is nothing to criticize. So what if Homan advertises on her face, utterly uncloaked, that rare, transcendent competitiveness all great athletes possess? Especially when it already has placed two Scotties championship trophies (2013, 2014) and world-championship bronze and silver medals on her mantel, and when it has propelled her rink — the only foursome still unbeaten at the Scotties — to an 9-0 start.
Don’t begrudge her for such ingame intensity, even if, for her, it both shields and belies a compelling aspect of her introverted personality — one that apparently few people outside of her family and close acquaintances know about.
“Rachel is the funniest person on the team,” said Ontario’s lead, 31-year-old Lisa Weagle. “Really — I just think she has an amazing sense of humour.”
Third Emma Miskew, 28, has been best friends with Homan since they were five years old growing up in Ottawa. Miskew is well aware of Homan’s rep, to the point she smiles and shakes her head before you can get out of your mouth the question posed at the top of this story.
“Everyone always says, ‘Oh, she’s so serious.’ Or, ‘She needs to smile more,’ ” Miskew said. “And we’re like, ‘If you only knew!’ because she really has quite a sense of humour.”
Weagle hasn’t known Homan as long as Miskew, but rooms with the skip on the road. At weeklong tournaments such as this, Weagle is with her 24-7.
“Rachel is actually very warm, really funny and one of my best friends,” Weagle said. “We have a ton of laughs together. A lot of our time on the road is spent watching funny videos or stuff on YouTube — just trying to keep it light and have a few laughs, because out here (on the rink during the Scotties), it’s stressful.
“It’s a long week. There’s a lot of pressure on all of us, but in particular on her. So I think that’s a good way for all of us to ease some tension.”
For her part, Homan agrees with her teammates, insofar as she’s not ever-serious. But in what ways? She wouldn’t tip her joker cards.
“It’s just stuff you don’t see on TV,” Homan said.
OK, but does her reputation bother her? Homan paused a moment.
“Um, I mean … it’s whatever anyone wants to think of me.”
Homan then defended her onice demeanour, even though it was unnecessary to do so.
“I’m probably the one on the team that cracks the most jokes and gets people to laugh,” she said. “But when the team is looking to me to make the next big (shot), it’s not a time to be joking around and laughing. There’s a lot on the line and we’ve all put in way too much for me to be cracking jokes in the middle of my throw. So absolutely I’m going to be 100 per cent business when it’s time to be. And as soon as we have that three-minute break or whatever, we’re trying to lighten it up and joke with each other and take that mental break that you need. You can’t focus for six hours.
“So we try to take it lighthearted and joke around as much as possible, but when it comes down to the throws — it’s not the time to be doing that.” So she can be funny. But as Joe Pesci’s Tommy asked in Goodfellas, funny how? That is, how exactly does Homan amuse? Is her brand of humour silly? Pranky? Punny? Topical? Raw?
Nope, none of those. Her team described it as follows.
Weagle, the lead: “Dry. Very dry.”
Kingsbury, the coach: “She is incredibly observant and will catch you on anything. So you have to be sharp — always.”
Cheryl Kreviazuk, the alternate, who has known Homan since childhood: “It’s a deadpan, dry, sarcastic — and she’s very, very quick-witted. It’s not mean, just funny. She’ll still have a straight face when she says a joke, and you kind of look at her. And then she’s got this little smirk and you’re like, ‘Oh-oh — gotcha there.’ She’s so quick.”
Joanne Courtney, the second, might have explained the root of Homan’s humour best: “When I joined the team (three years ago) she was the most supportive, the most nurturing and always the most lighthearted. The jokester. She’s always cracking jokes and they’re not mean-spirited at all. Her one-liners especially are great.”
Homan’s humour is seldom calculated, her teammates say, and usually spontaneous.
“Like yesterday,” Courtney said on Wednesday. “We were in the middle of our pre-game practice and this arena musician (Anderson Phillips) was playing some kind of Caribbean tune, and all of a sudden he started playing a (Justin) Bieber song. And Emma wanted to know what specific turn Rachel wanted her to throw in practice.
“And Rachel was just sitting there, bobbing along to the music and just smiling back at Emma. We all laughed and just went, ‘Whatever, Rachel.’ She’s always good for a one-liner like that. Really witty, and you can’t get much past her. If you say something silly, she’s going to catch it and you’re going to get made fun of.”
These are high-performance athletes, so Homan’s teammates don’t exactly need encouragement to dish it back as well as take it, even if it’s often to no avail.
“We all enjoy it, but none of us can deliver it like she can,” Miskew said.
Maybe only in that way is Homan the same off the ice.
Everyone always says, ‘Oh, she’s so serious.’ Or, ‘She needs to smile more,’ … And we’re like, ‘If you only knew!’