Homan and company get caught in the grind
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— As the game wore on and the pressure got more palpable, a group of fans clad in red and white broke the tension at the Gangneung Curling Centre by breaking into a chant that echoed through the otherwise quiet venue.
“Let’s go Canada, let’s go!” hollered the small assemblage of flag-toting supporters.
Bellowed one fan to punctuate the rallying cry: “Weee Arrre Canadiannn!”
For the past 20 years, being Canadian at an Olympic curling event meant you were likely either winning a medal or celebrating one. But Canada’s remarkable medal streak ended Wednesday morning here when Rachel Homan’s rink dropped a 6-5 decision to a team skipped by Britain’s Eve Muirhead. The loss dropped Canada’s record to 3-5, eliminating Homan from medal contention in the women’s draw and extinguishing a long-time national hot streak.
“We gave it all we had. We never gave up,” said Homan. “And that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Leading 5-4 into the 10th end, Homan’s rink piled mistake upon mistake as Muirhead, holding the hammer, stocked the house with yellow stones. Britain was lying four when Homan threw her penultimate shot, a takeout that reduced that number to two. But after Muirhead countered, Homan needed to make a difficult draw to extend the match. She came up short, and with that an era ended.
In each of the five Olympics since curling was added to the Winter Games program in 1998, Canada hadn’t failed to win a medal in both women’s and men’s play, winning five of a possible 10 golds over the span. But the unquestioned dominance is no longer.
“Canadians have to understand that these teams are really good outside of Canada. It’s becoming more and more apparent,” said British coach Glenn Howard, a winner of four world championships for Canada as a curler. “Folks, let’s wake up. Don’t be hard on Rachel. They did their best. They did what they could do. Maybe it’s not as well as they (could have) played. But these teams are playing well against them.”
Still, last year Homan and teammates Emma Miskew, Joanne Courtney and Lisa Weagle were an untouchable machine, breezing to world championship gold without losing a single game. At that tournament Homan curled a dominant 85 per cent.
Here, after curling 77 per cent for the tournament, Homan seemed stunned to the point of residing in a state of denial.
“I thought we played really well,” Homan said at one point.
Clearly what Canada put forth here wasn’t anyone’s idea of great shotmaking.
“Was it our sharpest week from a performance standpoint? Well, of course not,” said Canadian coach Adam Kingsbury. “But despite that, despite the record, every one of those games potentially could have gone either way.”
While Homan’s team downplayed the notion that they’d been overwhelmed by the enormity of the five-ringed stage — “I don’t think this felt any different to us than a world championship,” Miskew insisted — it’s hard to imagine the expectations that come with representing the world’s pre-eminent power weren’t a factor.
“Is it fun playing on an Olympic stage? I know it’s nerve-wracking,” said Kingsbury.