Homan, Einarson gain shorter road to Scotties Tournament of Hearts final

Team Canada (left to right) Rachel Homan, Sarah Wilkes, Tracy Fleury and Emma Miskew share a smile during a timeout in Scotties Tournament of Hearts action against British Columbia in Thunder Bay, Ont. on Wednesday, February 19, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

THUNDER BAY, Ont. -- The shortest road to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts final pits the team that wants to retain the Canadian women’s curling crown against a skip that wants to re-take it.

Defending champion Rachel Homan and Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson won Friday playoff games to advance to the Page playoff between the top two seeds Saturday in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Saturday’s victor gets an express ticket to Sunday’s championship game at the Fort William Gardens, while the loser must come through a semifinal to gain a rematch.

While it’s a non-elimination game, it’s nevertheless a women’s curling heavyweight bout and one that offers a smoother path to a championship.

“It’s nice to have that second life. We’ve got to win two more games,” Homan said. “However that happens, that’s our focus, is just staying in the moment, trying to learn and get better every end.”

The team that takes the Page one-two game has won the final 62 per cent of the time, or 18 out of 29 times since the Page format was introduced.

Homan has skipped teams to four Canadian titles and Einarson teams rattled off four straight from 2020 to 2023. Einarson defeated Homan in the 2020 and 2021 finals.

But Homan, third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes not only stayed unbeaten in Thunder Bay with Friday’s 10-5 win over Nova Scotia’s Christina Black, the reigning world champions from the Ottawa Curling Club have dominated domestic and international women’s curling for almost two seasons with a combined record of 121-11.

Einarson’s team was the only Canadian rink to beat Homan’s this season, which was in the final of the Grand Slam HearingLife Tour Challenge in October.

“Put some pressure on them. It looks like they’re struggling a little bit tonight, so maybe we can take advantage of that going forward,” Einarson said.

Her Gimli Curling Club side was a 7-4 winner Friday over Alberta’s Kayla Skrlik, who was to meet Ontario’s Danielle Inglis at night.

Black was to face B.C.‘s Corryn Brown in the other sudden-death game.

The victors in those games meet in Saturday’s Page game between the third and fourth seeds with the winner advancing to Sunday’s semifinal.

Homan’s shooting percentage for seven ends Friday was sub-80, but her teammates were plus-90 until their skip raised her game in the latter ends.

“Every game, ice is definitely challenging, and you really got to learn the nuances of each sheet,” Homan said. “Huge, huge shots as a team. Sweeping, line calling, really made some big ones.”

The margin of error against Homan’s team is “zero,” stated Black.

“They’re so good and so relentless,” the Nova Scotia skip said. “We started off pretty good and just didn’t capitalize on all the opportunities we got.

“That is a really tough sheet and so they weren’t as perfect as they normally are. But then, we weren’t perfect enough either.”

Meanwhile, Einarson, third Val Sweeting and front end Karlee Burgess and Krysten Karwacki were a more in-command group Friday than they’d been in pool play, when they scrambled from deficits in three of four straight wins to cap Pool B.

Burgess is somewhat new to the line up having joined the team in early January. Einarson recruited a number of substitute seconds this season’s events because of Shannon Birchard’s knee injury.

Einarson and Sweeting are the holdovers from the run of four straight titles. Karwacki was promoted from alternate to lead last year while Briane Harris’s appeal of her provisional suspension for a doping violation was processed.

Harris was found not to be at fault and her suspension lifted in January. But after Harris missed 11 months of competitive curling, Einarson didn’t insert her back in the lineup for this year’s Hearts.

Einarson’s battle with Skrlik was tight until the ninth end, when the latter’s attempt to steal went sideways and the skip faced three Einarson stones with her final shot. Skrlik ejected just one to leave Einarson a draw for three.

“We’re in a really great spot, really great mindset, like where you’re just calm out there and maybe not getting too much rocks in play, not going too hard for it,” Einarson said. “But also, they kept it pretty clean too after we got two (points).

“It’s definitely a confidence booster, and we get a little more rest in between games.”

Homan, Fleury, B.C.‘s second Sarah Koltun and lead Samantha Fisher were named to the first all-star team Friday.

Quebec skip Skip Laurie St-Georges, Sweeting, Manitoba (Lawes) second Jocelyn Peterman and Karwacki were second-team all-stars.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 21, 2025.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press