HearingLife Canadian Open Day 3 Takeaways: Homan clinches 13th straight playoff appearance
There are only so many words to describe the greatness of Canada’s Team Rachel Homan, so instead, how about some stats.
After their win to clinch their 13th straight Grand Slam of Curling playoff ticket at the HearingLife Canadian Open in Saskatoon, Sask., the numbers are scary.
This season alone in GSOC events, Homan’s team has a 23-1 record and has scored 167 points while only giving up 96, making a staggering plus-71 point differential.
This has led to winning all three Slam trophies to start the season.
Over the past three seasons, across all events, Homan’s team now has a record of 188-22. It’s simply dominance at another level.
Draw 9
Gim 7, Kang 4
Retornaz 5, McEwen 3
Waddell 7, Kleiter 2
Ha 6, Kitazawa 4
Draw 10
Hasselborg 8, Fujisawa 1
Muskatewitz 9, Dunstone 4
Mouat 7, Casper 4
Wang 7, X. Schwaller 3
Draw 11
Tirinzoni 9, Tabata 2
Shuster 9, Epping 4
Whyte 7, Edin 3
Homan 6, Kim 3
Draw 12
Yoshimura 8, Morrison 3
Jacobs 6, Gushue 4
Y. Schwaller 7, Hoesli 5
Einarson 6, Constantini 3
On the men’s and women’s sides, both the world No. 1 teams in Homan and Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat have already qualified for the Canadian Open playoffs. They’re joined by Canada’s Team Kerri Einarson and Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller, which isn’t a shock.
What is a shock however, is that Korea’s Team Seung-Youn Ha and Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz have also locked themselves into the playoffs.
There are two teams on the women’s side and five on the men’s side that are eliminated heading into the last day of round robin.
The battle of the Canadian Brads never disappoints.
And with Brad Gushue retiring after this season, there might not be many more battles between him and Brad Jacobs.
With a Gushue win he would qualify for the playoffs, and more importantly pull ahead in the all-time record between him and Jacobs, that was dead even at 33-33.
The games between Jacobs and Gushue have always been a strategic battle, and this one was no different.
Each shot that was called wasn’t just for the current rock they were throwing, but also planning for two or three rocks later in the end out of respect for what the opponent could do.
As a result, nobody wanted to give an inch and Gushue held a narrow 2-1 lead at the break.
It felt like one mistake and the game could be over. That mistake came in the seventh end with the game tied 3-3.
After Jacobs made a sweet double with his first stone, he had two rocks in the top of the 12-foot while Gushue had one in the top eight-foot. Without hammer, Gushue knew the only real option to force Jacobs was to draw in the back eight-foot while splitting the rings.
Gushue split the rings, but came up a tad light and sat on the button. This left a hard runback double for Jacobs.
Unfortunately for Gushue, he didn’t make it hard enough, as Jacobs made a runback double to score three.
Jacobs ran Gushue out of rocks in the eighth end, but two of Canada’s best delivered once again.
Korea’s Team Eun-jung Kim were already down 3-0 against Homan in the third end and as Eun-jung slid down the ice to throw her final rock, it was going to be a challenge to even score one.
Homan had three rocks in the house, including one partially buried in the four-foot while Eun-jung had none. To make matters worse, there was no easy hit to get shot rock for Eun-jung, so she was forced to draw.
As Eun-jung let go of the rock, her front end of Kyeong-ae Kim and Yeong-mi Kim noticed the rock was light and they needed to sweep the entire length of the ice just to have a chance.
When the rock got the rings it was no longer a question about weight, but instead, the line to get past Homan’s rocks. Thanks to the sweep by both Kyeong-ae and Yeong-mi, Eun-jung was able to get a shooters roll after hitting Homan’s stone and bounced into the four-foot, grabbing the single point.
Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone will want to forget this entire week.
After finishing runner-up at the Canadian Curling Trials in Halifax just last month, it’s clear the momentum Dunstone built up before the Trials this season has gone away completely.
Even though it’s not just him, this massive momentum swing that has been happening all week was captured in the first end against Muskatewitz.
The whole end wasn’t pretty for Dunstone’s squad and so, as a result, when he went to throw his last stone, he was facing four.
Attempting a soft-weight hit to hopefully give up just one, disaster struck. He hit Muskatewitz’s stone, but rolled out the side, giving up all four.
From there Dunstone and his team were chasing the game and ended up losing 9-4, eliminating them from the playoffs.
It will be important for Dunstone to use the holiday break as a reset and get refocused for 2026 with the chance to win his first Brier.
Things weren’t looking great for Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg after losing their first two games of the week and had to face Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa, who were 2-0 coming into the game.
If Hasselborg’s team was going to have a chance of making the playoffs, they had to win the game, and win in regulation.
That’s exactly what they did.
Hasselborg straight up dominated the entire game against Fujisawa. The first end couldn’t have gone any better, Hasselborg’s team played an outstanding end without hammer and earned a steal of three, setting the tone.
From there they followed it up with single steals in the second and third to go up 5-0.
After Fujisawa finally got one in the fourth end, Hasselborg went to work with the hammer for the first time and made a terrific shot with her final rock to score three.
Fujisawa had enough and shook, giving Hasselborg an 8-1 win, keeping their playoff hopes alive.
The HearingLife Canadian Open continues tomorrow on Sportsnet+ starting at 9:30 a.m. ET / 6:30 a.m. PT with Draw 13. Coverage begins on Sportsnet starting at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT with draw Draw 14.
Fujisawa vs. Kang at 9:30 a.m. ET/ 6:30 a.m. PT
Dunstone vs. Gushue at 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT
Homan vs. Einarson at 5 p.m. ET/ 2 p.m. PT
Epping vs. McEwen at 9 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT
