Canada, Homan commit rare error in split start at curling worlds

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Rachel Homan’s bid for the ‘double-double’ hit a snag on Day 1 of the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship.

Canada’s champion rink failed to deliver the double to open the global event, falling to Scotland 8-7 after thumping Lithuania 13-2 Saturday in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

The loss is a bit of an eyebrow raiser in their bid to complete the ‘double-double’ — that is ordering up two straight national titles and a pair of consecutive world crowns.

Especially with the way it happened.

“We made a lot of shots but not enough for one of our worst performances,” said Homan (1-1), reflecting on the last-end loss to Scotland’s Sophie Jackson (1-0), who has yet to make the playoffs in four previous visits as skip to the worlds.

“We can’t give up a three in 10.”

But they did just that.

Leading by two in the 10th end, Homan tried to remove a Scottish rock but jammed it on a Canadian counter in the back of the house. The error led to Scottish fourth Rebecca Morrison making a nose hit for three and earning the win.

The result and the miscue are rarities for such a juggernaut squad — comprised of skip Homan, third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes — that boasted a 56-4 record coming into the 13-team worlds.

“It just curled more than we thought,” Homan said. “The ice was pretty tricky, and it got the better of us, for sure.

“But we were a bit inconsistent with the lines, and we have to figure them out.”

And fast since they have arguably their toughest test of the round robin on Day 2.

That’s against ol’ foe Sweden, skipped by Anna Hasselborg, Sunday at the Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Rink (1 a.m. ET, TSN).

The Swedes are already standing 2-0 in South Korea after opening-day victories over Norway’s Marianne Roervik (0-1) — 6-4 — and Türkiye’s Dilsat Yildiz (0-2) — 8-1. Hasselborg, the Olympic champ from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, is also an eight-time victor on the Grand Slam of Curling circuit, including the Masters winner in January with a 7-5 defeat of Homan.

In Canada’s loss Saturday, momentum swayed back and forth throughout the game.

Scotland used the power of three to its advantage twice in the game, as it also scored three in the third end to take an early lead.

However, Canada battled through the first three and set up opportunities to reduce Scotland’s lead. What looked like a Scottish single in the fifth end morphed into a Canadian steal when Scotland rolled away from the centre on its last shot.

That error left the teams all square heading into the fifth end break and swung momentum back in Canada’s favour.

After keeping its opponents to a single in the sixth, Canada made a draw for two in the seventh to take the lead for the first time since the second end. Homan showcased her confidence in her draw weight in the eighth by finding the side eight-foot behind cover. That shot forced Scotland into a single point and kept Canada in control late in the game.

Canada had hammer in the ninth but found itself in some trouble with some rocks up front and Scotland sitting three by third rocks. It eliminated any chance of a blank and changed Canada’s gameplan into attempting to orchestrate a score of two or more. It worked. Homan managed a skip’s deuce, set up with a pair of wonderful shots from Fleury.

It was to no avail, though, with Scotland scoring the winning points in the 10th end.

It was quite different for the squad from the Ottawa Curling Club earlier in the day, when it laid down a convincing win — in just six ends —against Lithuania’s Team Virginija Paulauskaite, a team making its debut at the world women’s championship.

Canada pushed through a challenging first end to score two. Lithuania found its draw weight and was drawing behind some coverage in front of the house. Canada attempted some runbacks to clear out the Lithuanian stones but couldn’t stick behind the guards. However, Canada turned the end around later on, eventually setting up for a scrupulous hit for two.

“It was a bit of a weird end,” Homan said. “You’re going to have to make some guesses in the first game of the tournament. Lines and speeds were not quite what we expected, so there were a couple of misses there. But we learned from them and figured out how to make the next ones. I thought we had a pretty good handle on the ice and were debriefing every shot to try and take as much as we could from everything.”

From that point on, Team Homan ramped it up. In the second end, Lithuanian skip Paulauskaite forced herself to a single point after failing to roll out on the blank attempt.

Canada then seized control in the third, sinking numerous stones into the four-foot throughout the end. Lithuania had an opportunity to raise its own into a pocket to limit the damage but picked its own stone out to leave Canada sitting four.

Canada’s opposition attempted to salvage the situation with a few runbacks and double attempts but left Team Homan with a draw for five.

Canada stole another point in the fourth and forced Lithuania into one in the fifth for a 9-2 lead at the break. Team Homan ended the game in the sixth end with a draw for four, which elicited handshakes from its opponents, who qualified at the 2024 European Championships on a last-stone draw after finishing just 1-8 but in a three-way tie for the final worlds berth.

It was a start the Canadians were hoping for after arriving in South Korea last Monday and adjusting to the new time-zone and practising at the Uijeongbu Curling Rink next door.

“We’ve been anxiously awaiting and practising hard,” added Fleury. “It’s nice that the day finally (got) here and we (got) to compete. The ice is good, and we just tried to focus on getting a good handle on the ice and be precise, so we (were) happy with our start.”

HOW THE WORLDS WORK

It’s a 12-game round robin for each of the 13 countries represented in South Korea.

That means each team plays one another once during a busy schedule of 20 draws total over seven round-robin days.

After the round robin wraps up next Friday, the playoffs begin for the top-six sides Saturday.

The two teams with the best records of the round robin receive a bye through to the semifinals, leaving the teams with the third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-best records to meet in a pair of qualification games early Saturday in Uijeongbu (9 p.m. ET, Friday, TSN). That’s 3-v-6 and 4-v-5 in those qualification contests.

Then in semifinal action (3 a.m. ET, TSN), the winner of the 3-v-6 game plays the No. 2 seed, while the winner of the 4-v-5 game plays the No. 1 seed.

Semi losers then advance to the bronze-medal game early Sunday in Uijeongbu (9 p.m. ET, Saturday, TSN), while the semi winners earn spots to face one another in the gold-medal match, also Sunday (3 a.m. ET, Sunday, TSN).

This championship is the final event to earn Olympic qualification points for the women’s curling event at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games.

EXTRA ENDS

Other scores from the worlds Saturday saw: Korea’s Gim Eun-ji (1-0) edge Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura (0-1) 10-8; China’s Wang Rui (1-0) top Türkiye (0-2) 5-3; Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni (1-0) drop USA’s Tabitha Peterson (0-1) 5-4; and Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont (1-0) edge Stefania Constantini (0-1) 7-6 … The 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship begins Sunday in Summerside, P.E.I. (5 p.m. ET, Curling Canada’s YouTube channel). Thirty-two teams from across the country set up for six days of action in Gerard ‘Turk’ Gallant Arena at Credit Union Place and the Silver Fox Entertainment Complex. On the line is a chance to wear Canada’s colours at the 2026 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship (location to be named later) and a total $100,000 purse … In a hard-fought quarterfinal game early Saturday against Japan, Canada — represented by Ina Forrest of Spallumcheen, B.C., and Mark Ideson, of London, Ont. — came up short for the first time at the 2025 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Stevenston, Scotland. The 7-6 decision was Canada’s first loss in the tournament after finishing the round robin 6-0 and it halts Canada’s bid to qualify for the eight-team mixed doubles competition at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy. “We had a great round robin,” Ideson said. “We put ourselves in a good position coming into the quarterfinal. Japan had a great game — we just had a couple of unfortunate outcomes.”

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