Rachel Homan goes all in on a high-stakes year of curling

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. Life takes a back seat to curling for the Rachel Homan team these days.

They’ve dialled down their jobs and limited their social lives in a year of high stakes.

Homan skips host Ontario at the Canadian women’s curling championship that begins Saturday. The squad will also be a hometown favourite at December’s Olympic trials in Ottawa.

Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle possess the tools and talent to win both, and thus wear the Maple Leaf in next month’s world championship and next year’s Winter Olympics.

Maximizing their chances to do so means making sacrifices.

“We’ve all put our careers on hold,” Homan said Friday at the Meridian Centre. “We’ve spent a lot of time together as a team and less so on career.

“We’re not seeing our friends and family as much as we’d like to. But they know this is a priority for us and a life-long goal we’re trying to achieve and they’re 100 per cent behind us. You have to be OK with saying ‘No’ to things and taking time for yourself and taking time with the team and kind of putting that as a priority.”

The World Curling Tour ranks the Ottawa Curling Club foursome as the No. 1 women’s team in the world.

Winner of the 2015 Canada Cup, Homan was the first to nail down one of nine women’s berths for the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings in Ottawa.

Homan has stepped away from her job as a community ambassador in the RBC Olympians program.

Miskew was a project coordinator for Canada’s Senate but quit that job just over a year ago to start her own design company and have more flexible hours.

“My biggest issue when I worked for the government was taking almost 50 per cent of the time off between September and April,” Miskew explained. “I decided to step back and do my own freelance designing.”

Courtney, a registered nurse in Edmonton, picks up a casual shift when she can. Weagle has taken a leave of absence from her communications job with the federal government.

“We have big goals for ourselves and we’re trying to position ourselves to do everything we can achieve them,” Weagle said.

Homan, Miskew, Weagle and second Alison Kreviazuk won back-to-back Canadian women’s crowns in 2013 and 2014, taking bronze and silver respectively at the world championships.