Rocky start

Homan not panicking after 0-2 start

GANGNEUNG —

Nobody saw this coming.

Canada, despite being the defending Olympic champion, is winless after two draws at the 2018 Winter Games.

Rachel Homan’s Ottawa foursome played two incredibly tight games Thursday and came out on the losing end both times — falling 8-6 to South Korea in the morning and 7-6 in an extra end to Sweden in the evening.

It’s not the end of the world as the 2017 world champions still have seven games left to nail down a playoff spot but any time Canada loses even one game at the Olympics, it’s surprising.

Two losses constitute a true shocker.

“I’mat the Olympics so nothing is disappointing,” Homan said.

“It’s a long round-robin and there are so many good teams. We knew it was going to be tough for anybody to go undefeated in this tournament. We’ve got to keep plugging away.

The Canadians, including third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle, will try for their first win Friday afternoon against Denmark at the Gangneung Curling Centre.

The team played well in both games Thursday and had chances to win but that doesn’t appease the high expectations of the masses back home in a country that has never missed out on a medal in any Olympic curling discipline since 1998.

The morning loss to South Korea was Canada’s first since the gold medal game in Vancouver in 2010. Jennifer Jones went 11-0 to win the gold medal in Sochi in 2014.

Korean skip Eunjung Kim made some spectacular shots and the Canadians couldn’t quite match the razzle dazzle.

The game turned in the ninth end when Homan was left with either a draw to the button for one or a runback that she hoped would result in a deuce.

With the Koreans lead- ing 5-4, Homan threw her bread-and-butter shot — the high-heater — but the angles weren’t quite right and the Canadian rocks spilled too far, leaving the Koreans with a steal of three for an insurmountable 8-4 lead.

In the evening game, the Canadians scratched and clawed their way to an extra end, but could only stand back and watch as Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg coolly drew the fourfoot for the winning point.

“It was looking good … we made tons of shots,” Homan said. “There’s a couple shots we want back but the other teams played really well.

“It was really close. My team played really well and stuck it through right to the end. Sweden had a phenomenal game.”

Courtney said something similar about the Koreans earlier in the day.

“We just had a few too many misses,” Courntey said. “Team Korea played fantastic and they made us pay for our errors.”

The Canadians will need to get a better handle on the ice in a hurry and start winning the close games. The Homan foursome has plenty of experience and can handle being in a hole, but it can’t get much deeper.

On the bright side, Homan and Co., have been down a similar road before. They lost the first game at the Canadian Olympic trials in December but reeled off 10 straight wins to qualify for Pyeongchang.

Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris lost their first game of the Olympic mixed doubles tournament and then ran the table to claim a gold medal.

It’s far from an insurmountable situation but there will need to be more urgency from the Canadian side. There are still plenty of teams left on the round-robin schedule that can give Canada a great deal of trouble.

As the 2017 world champions and the reigning Olympic champs, Canada clearly has a target on its back.

“Although we participate in a lot of leagues, we haven’t had many chances to go against Canada, so this was very nervous, the first time,” Eunjung Kim, the Korean skip, said. “But we tend to focus more when we play against really, really good teams, for example, Canada.

“Since Canada is one of the best teams in the world, we’re very happy that we won.”

Few people would have predicted this for Canada, but Miskew didn’t sound overly surprised. Nor did she sound particularly concerned.

“Everyone last year at the worlds talked about us going undefeated but we could easily have not gone undefeated,” Miskew said. “We could easily have lost three or four games. We squeaked through a bunch of them.

“We knew all the teams earned their right to be here so we expected a great game from everyone and so far that’s what they’re giving us.”

I’m at the Olympics so nothing is disappointing. Rachel Homan