Shootout sends Homan to semifinal
Results of pre-game draws were used to break the tie
Puck purists dislike the shootout because it’s a skills contest at the end of a hockey game. But this week at the Olympic curling trials, the cumulative result of a skills contest held before each game has sent Ottawa’s Rachel Homan to the semifinal of the Roar Of The Rings.
Homan beat Saskatoon’s Stefanie Lawton 6-5 on Wednesday to finish the round robin at 4-3, tied for second with Sherry Middaugh of Coldwater, Ont., and Winnipeg’s Chelsea Carey — behind Jennifer Jones, who was 6-1 and goes directly to Saturday night’s final.
But because the three 4-3 teams each had a win and a loss against the other two, the results of their pre-game draws to the button were totalled and used to break the tie.
It’s complicated, but as briefly as possible: before every game, one member of each team throws a draw and the rink with the closer stone to the button gets last rock in the first end. Each member of the team must throw at least once over the course of the seven-game round robin, and the best six throws count toward the team’s cumulative measured distance in the event of an unbreakable three-team tie.
Translation: Middaugh, who beat Carey 7-6 on Thursday, has to meet her again in Friday’s tiebreaker to qualify for Friday night’s semifinal against Homan, the reigning Scotties champion.
“We’ve played them both a million times, and it’s going to be a good game and hopefully we can win it in 10,” said Homan.
“It’s nice to be able to get second place and go onto the semi, obviously, but either way we had a chance, and that’s all we needed. We were in the driver’s seat, but we had to win that last game. My team was really good at the draws to the button this week, and I’m really proud of them for nailing those, and that got us into second place.”
Middaugh had to win her last three games to get into the tiebreaker.
“I don’t think I played as well as I have been, but the team played very well, and the fact we’re in a tiebreaker is a good thing,” she said. “We were guaranteed a tiebreaker either way,” said Carey. “So, if they told us at the start of the week we’d be in a tiebreaker, I’d have said, ‘ Sign me up.’ So we’ll see if we can rattle off a couple of wins.
“We just didn’t make enough shots. But we’ve been in sudden death games before and we’ve won them and lost them ... we’ll figure it out.”
Thursday’s final round robin games sent Edmonton’s Heather Nedohin (3-4), who was beaten 6-5 by Jones, home along with the other two Alberta rinks, Val Sweeting (34) of Edmonton and Renee Sonnenberg (2-5) of Grande Prairie, as well as Lawton (2-5).
Sonnenberg, who had already been eliminated, handed Sweeting, who began the week 3-0, her fourth consecutive loss Wednesday, 9-8 in 11 ends, to knock her out of a possible tiebreaker.
“I have enough respect for the game to know that you cannot just go out there and be sloppy — we still play that team in provincials this year, so hopefully we can repeat this performance there,” said Sonnenberg, “but for the integrity of the game and respect to our fellow competitors, we had to give our all out there, and we did that today.”