FOR HOMAN’S RINK, THE WORLD IS WAITING
Three-time Scotties winners are going back to curling’s biggest stage
After conquering Canada for the third time in dramatic fashion, Rachel Homan and her robust Ontario rink have their sights set on yet more gold.
Homan’s foursome next competes at the worlds, March 18 to 26 in Beijing. Homan’s team from the Ottawa Curling Club won silver in 2014, and bronze in 2013.
On Sunday night at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ont., Team Ontario overcame two lost leads in posting an extra-end, 8-6 victory over Michelle Englot and Team Manitoba in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts goldmedal game.
Being the world’s top-ranked women’s curling team is one thing for Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle. But having medal-winning experience on the world championship stage will help them most in Beijing.
“It’s different,” Homan said of the worlds late Sunday night. “It’s a different crowd, different venue, a little bit different ice. And so our experiences there will help us perform to our best.
“We’re representing Canada. It’s just a surreal feeling, and I can’t wait to put the Maple Leaf on.”
In defeating Manitoba for the first time in three attempts at this year’s Scotties, Homan seemingly made every type of difficult shot there is. Homan wasn’t perfect on the night. No player was, or would expect to be, when two such teams of proven, unflappable shotmakers go at it.
Englot and her team of third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Scott continued their inexplicable, late-game affinity for scrounging points from unpromising ends with the hammer, and stealing points without it. That’s in part how they lost only one of 12 games before Sunday, and turned a 3-1 deficit after two ends on Sunday into a 4-3 lead entering the eighth.
Ontario lost a second lead (6-4) in the 10th, but still pulled out victory in the 11th.
Homan was asked if she and her rink ever had to make so many unlikely shots to win a big game.
“I don’t think so,” Homan said. “Not for this stage, not for this kind of pressure, with that much on the line for us — no.”
Among the lasting take-aways from Sunday night’s thriller was the play of the thirds: Ontario’s Miskew and Manitoba’s Cameron. Each shot 86 per cent.
The best example of their representative effectiveness came with their last throws in the most dramatic end, the 10th. Miskew wiped out two Manitoba stones for Ontario, which Cameron calmly answered by scattering the two Ontario shot stones, to leave Manitoba sitting two.
“We knew it was going to be a battle and we didn’t want to get down if things weren’t going our way early,” Miskew said. “Rachel made that great shot for three, and then we had another chance for two a couple ends later, and we just racked. So we didn’t want to get into a mindset of negativity from that.”
With her last rock of the 10th end, Homan was faced with a must double. Manitoba sat three, and the three stones were widely arrayed across the back of the 12-foot. Homan punched two of them out on a ricochet. Her team’s reaction? “Oh my God!” Miskew said. “Luckily you get three minutes between ends, so we definitely all focused on our breathing (before the extra end). If she doesn’t make that shot, the game’s over.
“Rachel made a game-saver. I loved her throwing that, because she had made that shot so many times. … She’s obviously an amazing hitter.”
If you tuned in to the end of the Oscars on Sunday night, you witnessed a colossal awards show gaffe for the ages when the wrong best picture winner was announced. If you watched the Scotties final, you saw the opposite on the competence scale, maybe the high-water mark of clutch shot-making in women’s curling.
At minimum, it was as dramasoaked a gold-medal game that one of Canada’s most beloved sports can offer.