Woes keep piling up for winless Homan
GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA It was already a stunningly bad start for Canada in the Olympic women’s curling tournament and things got much, much worse on Friday.
Not only did Rachel Homan and her Ottawa four some fall to 0-3 by blowing a late lead and giving up an extra-end steal to lose 9-8 to previously winless Denmark, but they also angered much of the curling world.
The Canadians are now the only winless team in the tournament and will need five, or possibly six, wins in their next six games to have any chance of making the playoffs.
They also had to explain why they chose to remove a rock touched by a Danish sweep er as it came to rest in the fifth end.
“I wouldn’t have done it, but we’re different that way,” Danish skip Madeleine Dupont said.
The rules of curling say that a non-offending team has three choices when a rock is burned after the hog line: Remove the rock that was touched and replace all other rocks that were displaced after the infraction; Replace all stones where the team reasonably considers the stones would have come to rest; or leave the stones where they come to rest.
The Canadians chose the first option and it helped them score four points.
To be blunt, the Canadians look lost. Homan is afraid to even try draws and chooses to hit on almost every occasion, even if it means a much higher degree of difficulty. She curled just 66 per cent against Denmark, the worst percentage of any player in the game.
Despite the disastrous start, it’s not like Canada is out of this thing. Two teams made the playoffs in Sochi in 2014 with 5-4 records.
Canada’ s next test is Saturdaynight when they take on the United States.