Canada sits at 11-0 heading into playoffs
BEIJING — Canada skip Rachel Homan tuned up for the playoffs in style Thursday by beating Italy and Denmark to remain unbeaten at the world women’s curling championship.
Homan and her team of third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle closed out round-robin play with a perfect 11-0 record.
As the top seed, the Ottawabased team will open with hammer in the Page playoff 1-2 game against Russia’s Anna Sidorova on Friday night.
The 1-2 winner will advance to Sunday’s gold-medal game and the loser will fall into Saturday’s semifinal. Canada is trying to win gold for the first time since 2008.
“You can go undefeated in the round-robin and not win a medal, so it’s not like it’s in the bag,” said Miskew. “We still have two or potentially three tough teams to play. We’re prepared to have to play the semi, but it would be great to come out tomorrow and have a good game to get to the final.
“But it’s all business for us. We’re just trying to stay patient out there, not get caught up in anything and just play our game.”
Homan had already secured the first seed entering her morning game against Italy’s Diana Gaspari at the Capital Gymnasium. Canada scored three in the fourth end and a deuce in the eighth for an 8-5 victory.
In the afternoon matchup, Denmark’s Lene Nielsen had a 4-3 lead after seven ends but Homan moved ahead with an open hit for three points in the eighth. She iced the 8-4 victory with a steal of two in the ninth.
Homan is making her third career appearance at this event. She won bronze in 2013 in Riga and took silver the next year in Saint John, N.B.
“I mean we’ve been in this position before and that’s great,” Miskew said. “In Latvia it was very overwhelming going into the playoffs because it was our first world championship (at this level). We were there in Saint John, too, and now it’s great that it’s our third time here and we’re used to this playoff scenario.
“We have two lives in the playoffs and we’re really grateful for that.”