And then there were three. Round-robin play in the women’s division of the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials wrapped up Wednesday afternoon at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre in thrilling fashion.
Team Rachel Homan and Team Kerri Einarson faced off with the bye to the finals on the line, while Team Christina Black, Team Selena Sturmay, Team Kaitlyn Lawes and Team Kayla Skrlik were all still in the mix for the third and final playoff berth.
Homan defeated Einarson 7-6 and will head straight to the best-of-three finals that begin Friday to settle who will represent Canada at the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy, in February.
Einarson has a second chance as she will play Black in Thursday’s elimination semifinal.
HOMAN TAKES TOP SPOT
As soon as the match schedule was announced, it was always building to the final draw between Homan and Einarson, by far the top two women’s teams in the nation. The two-time reigning Canadian and world champion Homan, who has captured three consecutive Grand Slam of Curling titles this fall, sits comfortably at the top of the world rankings. Einarson, who earned four straight Canadian titles from 2020-23, is currently ninth overall.
Although Homan opened with the hammer after winning the draw to the button, Einarson struck the scoreboard first with a steal in the second end. Homan looked to make a tap for two points and just avoided crashing into a guard, but wasn’t lucky the second time and wrecked on her own stone to give up the point.
The Ottawa-based club quickly regrouped, converting for a deuce in the third and stealing one back in the fourth to grab a 3-1 advantage.
The momentum pendulum swung back in Einarson’s favour in the fifth after Homan misfired a runback attempt, giving the skip from Gimli, Man., a shot to score three and retake the lead.
Once again, Homan regained control, scoring a deuce in the sixth and stealing two in the seventh to make it 7-4.
Einarson was limited to just a single in the ninth, and Homan handed over a point in the 10th to secure the victory.
Both teams finished round-robin play with identical 6-1 records, with Homan earning the bye based on their head-to-head result. Homan’s lone loss of the week so far came Sunday evening to Skrlik in an extra end.
Thievery was key and it’s no surprise that steals played a part as Homan (25) and Einarson (23) pirated the most points over the course of the week.
All four members of Team Homan finished at the top of the percentages at their respective positions, with Homan shooting 86 per cent, third Tracy Fleury at 90 per cent, second Emma Miskew at 92 per cent, and lead Sarah Wilkes at 93 per cent.
Homan also had the best hammer efficiency over the week, scoring multiple points with the hammer 43 per cent of the time.
Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Homan holds an 86-3 record versus Canadian teams. Two of those losses came against Einarson, most recently in the Tour Challenge final on Oct. 6, 2024. Homan has won seven straight head-to-head meetings since then.
EINARSON VS. BLACK IN SEMIFINAL
The hometown hero Black (4-3) ended round-robin play with a 10-6 victory over Team Kate Cameron, but then had to play the waiting game with fate out of her hands.
Sturmay finished with an identical record, following a 9-4 win over Team Corryn Brown, and held the head-to-head tiebreaker over Black. That meant Black needed Lawes to defeat Skrlik to force a three-way tie scenario. Since Black, Sturmay and Lawes were all even at 1-1 in head-to-head, last stone draw totals would then send Black to the semifinal.
The crowd erupted as Lawes scored four points in the 10th end to defeat Skrlik 9-6.
Black had quite possibly the toughest draw schedule to start on paper, facing the top three women’s teams based on the rankings off the bat. The week started with a 12-5 loss to Einarson and an 8-2 loss to Homan, before Black got into the win column with a 7-3 victory over Lawes.
Now, things come full circle as Black gets a rematch against Einarson.
Einarson enters as the favourite again, having won all eight of their previous head-to-head matchups and is 2-0 this season. On top of last Saturday’s showdown, Einarson also defeated Black 8-2 during the preliminary round of the CO-OP Tour Challenge last month in Nisku, Alta.
It’s a rematch of last season’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts semifinal as well, where Einarson topped Black 9-8 before losing to Homan in the final.
Both Einarson (82 per cent) and third Val Sweeting (87 per cent) finished second at their respective positions this week. Second Shannon Birchard (82 per cent) and lead Karlee Burgess (90 per cent) ended up in third place at their positions.
Black (76 per cent, fourth among skips) had her worst game statistically speaking against Einarson, shooting 55 per cent, but is coming off her best game, firing at an 89 per cent clip against Cameron. It’s the reverse for Einarson, who shot 92 per cent against Black and 66 per cent against Homan.
Steals have been key for Einarson, and Black will have to avoid falling into that trap. Black has surrendered 20 stolen points, second only to Brown (27).
PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
The pun answer would be to bet on Black — being the lone game in the arena for the first time could alter things and having the crowd on her side is a huge bonus — but it’s hard not to side with Einarson, given her historical record and how well her team has played this week outside of the Homan game.
Semifinal prediction: Einarson over Black.
Team Homan had some nervous moments on Wednesday, but their resiliency is something else as they kept coming back. Einarson has defeated Homan twice in two-plus seasons; it’s tough to see her beat Homan twice in two or three days, although there should be some great matchups.
Final prediction: Homan over Einarson in two games.
