HOMAN BACK IN TOP FORM FOR SCOTTIES
After putting Olympic disappointment in the past, Ontario team on a tear this season
A year ago at this time, Rachel Homan and her teammates were in South Korea, having one of the worst weeks of their curling lives.
They were off their game at the worst possible time and it resulted in an off-the-podium finish at the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
Anyone who thought that bad week was a sign of things to come for the team was sadly mistaken.
“We had one bad event and everyone thought we were spiralling or something,” Homan’s third, Emma Miskew, said Friday after practice at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
“People always ask us, ‘What turned around for you?’ Well, we just had one bad event. To be honest, the Olympics wasn’t as bad as it seemed. It’s just such a big event. Everyone sees it and sees the results and thinks that (the Olympics are) everything and it must mean that the team isn’t playing well and things aren’t clicking. Really, it was just that one event wasn’t our absolute best.”
Since then, the Homan team has been on a tear. This season, Homan has won five major events, made the final of two others and made the semifinals of three more. The foursome’s worst finish in any event was fourth place and Homan has a 51-13 record overall.
“We’ve just had another really good year,” said Homan, whose Ontario team also includes second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle. “We’ve worked hard, we’ve put in the training together. It’s one more year with the four of us and every year you’re together you just get stronger and stronger. We’ve just put a lot of work into the game and it’s really paying off.”
Homan is the top seed for the Scotties, an event her Ottawa Curling Club team won in 2017, the last time it participated. Homan couldn’t defend the title last year because of the Olympic commitment and Jennifer Jones won her sixth Canadian women’s curling championship.
This is the first time both Jones (Team Canada) and Homan have been in the Scotties field since 2015. They last met in the final in 2013, when Homan won her first of three Scotties titles.
They are in separate pools for the preliminary round, but will surely meet up in the championship round and quite likely again in the playoffs.
Though Jones is seeking her record seventh Canadian championship, most people would say Homan is the favourite, which is saying something given how bleak things looked a year ago.
“It’s a sport and you can’t guarantee anything,” Miskew said.
“In 2017 we won the worlds and went undefeated, but we had a lot of close games. We managed to be on the winning side of those close games and then at the Olympics we were on the losing side of those close games and the record showed a different story.”
Homan opens the Scotties Saturday night against Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville.
This has been a very different year for Homan.
She now lives in Edmonton with her husband, Shawn Germain, she’s pursuing an education degree at the University of Alberta, and she’s expecting her first child in June.
It certainly seems, from her team’s success, that she’s been able to strike a balance between curling and life.
“It’s definitely a challenge,” she said. “You go from go, go, go while you’re on the road and then you get back and you’ve got lots of work to do. I’m doing my placement right now, teaching at a school. You’re right back at it as soon as you get home, so not a lot of down time. Sometimes you’d like to take a couple of days to recover ... but I think everybody goes through that, whether you’re working or have a busy life outside of curling.”
After the Ontario provincial championship in Elmira, Homan released a statement on Twitter saying she was disappointed about an incident and was seeking an apology.
The incident, which Homan described as bullying, reportedly involved other players conspiring to sarcastically vote for Homan to win a sportsmanship award, which she did indeed win. Her eligibility to play in Ontario, because she lives in Edmonton, was questioned by some of her opponents.
“We’ve moved past that situation and we’re just focusing on nationals,” Homan said.
This will be the second year of having a 16-team field for the Scotties and it’s a format that’s still growing on some teams.
Homan’s team has not played under this format, which includes two pools of eight teams and a championship round featuring the top four from each group.
Tracy Fleury, who represented Northern Ontario last year and is skipping Manitoba this year, said there are pros and cons.
“I don’t think there’s a format that’s ever gonna make everybody happy . ... One of the drawbacks is not getting to play every team in the field.”
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