Homan rink collapses in world final
SAINT JOHN, N.B. — The sun will rise in the east, but Monday won’t be nearly as much fun as it could have been for Rachel Homan.
The Ottawa skip, whose foursome includes teammates Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk and Lisa Weagle, had her hopes and dreams dashed by Binia Feltscher’s plucky Swiss rink, which upset the heavily favoured Canadians 9-5 in the goldmedal game of the Women’s World Curling Championship at Harbour Station arena on Sunday night.
So, instead of the first world title for a Canadian rink since 2008, Homan was left to ponder what might have been.
The silver medal is one step up from the world bronze medals the Canadians earned last year in Latvia.
Meanwhile, Feltscher and her teammates from Flims were rejoicing after Switzerland’s second championship in three years.
Feltscher, third Irene Schori, second Franziska Kaufmann and lead Christine Urech were the only curlers to defeat the Canadians during the round robin portion of this year’s tournament.
However, the two-time national champions and 2013 world bronze medallists cruised through the rest of the round robin, finishing in first place at 10-1. Canada thrashed the Swiss 8-3 in the 1-vs.-2 Page playoff game on Friday night to earn a direct entry into Sunday’s final.
The Swiss had to win Saturday’s semifinal against South Korea’s Ji-Sun Kim.
Sunday’s contest started ultra-conservatively, with the Swiss playing rocks into the rings early in each end and the Canadians removing almost immediately.
There was only one corner guard played in the first two ends, by the Canadians, and that end was still blanked after Homan played a hit-and-roll with her final stone. That didn’t make this game terribly different from any of the first 12 played by Homan’s team: Seven of them had started with blank ends, just not two of them in a row.
The third end took a different turn after both teams played opening corner guards. Eventually there was a half-dozen rocks in the rings, the last of them after Homan’s out-turn draw to the four-foot rings for the game’s first two points.
That edge didn’t even last through the next end, but the Canadians were more than a little fortunate that, with an opportunity to draw for three, Feltscher was heavy with her last rock. Instead, the Swiss scored just two and Canada regained lastrock advantage in what was a tie game.
In the fifth end, Feltscher bounced her final stone off another Swiss rock and rolled into the four-foot, but Homan, aided by strong sweeping from front-enders Weagle and Kreviazuk, managed to squeeze past one guard and rub off the edge of another to tap the Swiss rock back for another two points and a 4-2 Canadian lead.
The sixth end started with a couple of Canadian rocks just behind the button. That was initially a good thing, but became problematic after Schori basically froze her second stone to one of them.
One bullet down the middle cleared the wall of rocks along the back and, after Feltscher came up short with her own freeze, a second removed both remaining Swiss stones in the rings. Feltscher had to make a hit for one, reducing the home team’s lead to 4-3, but Canada had the hammer back, and Homan used it to make a draw for one in the seventh.
It was another two-lead for Canada, the third of the night, but there was bigger trouble ahead in the eighth end. Homan was left with a deflection shot off a rock in the side of the eight-foot, but her stone spun too far, and Feltscher made a draw with the hammer to score three for a 5-4 lead. It was the first time Canada had trailed all game.
There was more of that in the ninth end. There were way too many Canadian rocks out in front of the rings and too many Swiss rocks—three — in the rings when Homan stepped in the hack.
The 24-year-old skip rubbed one of those guards with her first attempt, and Feltscher put another stone in the top of the four-foot to lay three.
Homan tried an angle raise double to remove as many as she could, but was off target, which gave Switzerland a steal of three and a 9-5 lead.
Then it was only a matter of counting rocks. Once the Swiss had removed five, it was over.