Any time Team Rachel Homan loses a game — an exceedingly rare event over the past few years — it’s notable. But two in a row? Well, that may have caused a meltdown among Canadian curling fans.
So, suffice it to say, there were a number of eyeballs focusing on the two-time reigning Canadian and World champions from Ottawa as they stepped onto ice Monday afternoon at the Scotiabank Centre after losing in an extra end Sunday night to Team Kayla Skrlik of Calgary at the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, presented by Connect Hearing.
Any thoughts that there would be some lingering after-effects were dispelled quickly as Team Homan scored three in the first end and five more in the third en route to a 12-5 victory over Team Selena Sturmay (2-2; Edmonton).
With the win, Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown and coach Heather Nedohin improved to 3-1 and in sole possession of second place in the eight-team round-robin standings behind unbeaten Team Kerri Einarson (4-0; Gimli, Man.).
Sunday night marked the first time Team Homan had lost to a Canadian team in 413 days, and it snapped a 32-game win streak against Canadian opponents.
So there was no shortage of motivation to bounce back strongly on Monday and prevent a second straight loss — something that hasn’t happened for this team since October 2023.
“It’s a short round robin so you have to come out strong every game, and anything in the past, nothing can be changed about that,” said Homan. “You just have to move forward and come with your best game the next day.”
It was an ideal start to Monday’s game, although it really came out of nowhere. When Fleury settled in to throw her second stone of the first end, only one stone — a Team Sturmay centre guard — was in play. But three straight makes by Team Homan and three straight misses by Team Sturmay produced a three.
Team Sturmay replied with a deuce, but Team Homan turned up the heat in the third end and when Sturmay’s last-rock takeout attempt wrecked on a guard, Homan was left with a draw for five to make it 8-2 and remove any doubt about the eventual end result.
The discussion after Sunday night’s loss was focused on learning, said Homan.
“(We picked up on) a few things I’m not going tell you,” said Homan with a smile. “Just a few tweaks that we made, and we felt like we came out stronger and a little bit more precise today.
“We have the confidence in each other and the belief in each other; we put in the work and you know we’re going to come out as strong as we can if we fall short.”
So it will be 25 months-plus and counting since Team Homan has lost two in a row, and for the record, Homan couldn’t remember the circumstances (losses to Italy’s Team Stefania Constantini and Team Einarson at the Grand Slam Tour Challenge in Niagara Falls, Ont.).
“I don’t know,” she replied with a laugh. “Hopefully not this week.”
In other Monday afternoon results, Team Einarson remained unbeaten, scoring a crucial fifth-end deuce en route to a 6-4 victory over Team Kaitlyn Lawes (2-2; Winnipeg); Team Christina Black (2-2; Halifax) evened its record with a 9-4 win over Team Corryn Brown (1-3; Kamloops, B.C.); and Team Skrlik (2-2) scored two in the 10th end for a 7-6 victory over Team Kate Cameron (0-4; St. Adolphe, Man.).
Men’s play at the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials resumes with the Monday night draw at 7 p.m. (all times Atlantic).
Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials are available by CLICKING HERE.
TSN and RDS will provide coverage of the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule.
For ticket information for the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, go to www.curling.ca/2025trials/tickets.
This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/2025trials/nouvelles.
