Homan, Canada getting comfy, flashing smiles at curling worlds
Team Canada is up 3-1 at the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship in South Korea
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Rachel Homan flashed more than her usual share of smiles Monday at the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship.
Yes … the all-business superstar skip let Canadians back home know all is well with her Ottawa team’s bid in trying to defend the global title won last year on home soil.
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Canada (4-1) is feeling more comfy — and it shows.
Especially throughout its only game on the world stage Monday — a 9-3 victory in eight ends over Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont (2-2) in Uijeongbu, South Korea.
“Yeah … I thought we read the lines pretty good, and we capitalized on some of their mistakes,” said Homan, dropping another quick grin on air during her post-game interview with World Curling.
“We kind of drew ourselves out of trouble there a couple of times,” continued Homan. “They had us, and it looked like maybe a two or three (against), but we were able to get away with it with a couple of precise draws — some really good team shots.”
With the win, skip Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown and national coaches Viktor Kjell and Renée Sonnenberg continue to put their ugly Saturday loss to Scotland behind them.
“(The ice) was different that game again (Monday),” Miskew said. “It was quite a bit straighter than we’ve seen so far, so we had to adjust to that because it was faster and straighter. But that’s kind of the surface that we had at the Scotties, so it was easy to adapt.
“Every sheet’s just a little bit different, so we’re trying to figure it out one game at a time and staying patient.”
The Canadians figured it out early Tuesday, when they defeated the USA’s Tabitha Peterson 8-4 .
With comfort now in their back pocket, Homan, Miskew & Co. are only likely to get better, ramping up to find the juggernaut tendencies that have put them in a position to win a second straight world title.
But there’s still plenty of work ahead for them at the Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Rink, with their next game against Turkey’s Dilsat Yildiz (6 a.m. ET, Tuesday, TSN).
WHAT’S THE PATH TO ANOTHER WORLD TITLE?
The 12-game round robin concludes Friday to decide which teams qualify for the playoffs:
• The six teams with the best records after the round robin advance to the playoffs
• There are no tiebreaker games
• Any tiebreak needed in the standings is determined respectively by: 1) which team wins more of the head-to-head matchups; 2) by measuring the total of the accumulated draw-shot distance for those tied teams based on the draw-to-the-button — or last-stone draw — competition before the teams’ round-robin matchups; 3) by measuring dropping the total of that accumulated draw-shot distance after dropping the largest distance between draws; and 4) repeat 3) if necessary by dropping the next largest distance until the tie is broken
HOW DOES THE PLAYOFF SYSTEM WORK?
The playoffs are slated for Saturday and Sunday:
• The top two teams from the round robin earn byes to the semifinal round
• The third-place team plays the sixth, and the fourth-place team faces the fifth in qualifying games (9 p.m. ET, Friday, TSN)
• Winners of those qualifying games then advance to the semifinals (3 a.m. ET, Saturday, TSN), with the No. 1 seed facing the winner of 4-v-5 and the No. 2 seed playing the winner of 3-v-6
• The losers of those semis play each other in the bronze-medal game (9 p.m. ET, Saturday, TSN)
• The semifinal victors play each other for gold medals and the world title in the championship finale (3 a.m. ET, Sunday TSN)
HOW CANADA BEAT DENMARK
Team Homan produced a highlight reel of content to score points and limit the Danes.
The Canadian skip’s first shot of the game was a spot-on freeze. Dupont attempted to follow it in but chapped off, leaving Canada with an opening deuce.
While Homan had a rare flash in the second end, it did not dictate the game. Denmark missed its opportunity, drawing heavy on a chance for three and settled for two.
Homan was again in fine form in the fourth end, playing a combination runback, driving forward three Canadian stones to evict the two Danish counters on the button. That shot led to Canada stealing one.
Denmark looked like it could score multiple points in the fifth. Team Homan debated playing a runback to likely give up two or play aggressively with a draw to the four-foot to sit one, but risk giving up three. Canada opted for the latter, and Homan made it to perfection.
In fact, the Canadian skip was on fire, finishing the game with 91% accuracy.
“We overstepped a couple of Tracy’s (throws) because it was faster than we were expecting, so we really knew the speeds,” Miskew said. “We were able to relay that information to (Rachel) confidently, which in other games is something that we didn’t always have a grasp on.”
The second half of the game was all Canada, scoring a deuce in six, a single steal in seven and a steal of two in eight.
Miskew believes the team isn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet, but she remains optimistic the team is trending in the right direction as it aims to defend its world title.
“We know we’re not robots — we’re going to make mistakes,” added Miskew. “It’s just a matter of learning from those mistakes, not getting upset with them, and taking it one shot at a time because they’re long games out there.”
EXTRA ENDS
Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni (5-0) and South Korea’s Eunji Gim (5-0) each enjoyed two-win days Monday. Switzerland knocked off Japan (2-3) and Scotland (2-3) 9-5 and 6-5, respectively. South Korea needed an extra end to pick up a 9-6 win over China (2-2) before defeating Turkey (0-5) 9-4 … Also Monday at the women’s worlds, it was: USA (2-2) surprising Sweden (3-2) 6-5 in an extra end; Norway (2-3) 7-6 over Turkey; Japan 10-3 over Lithuania (0-5); Scotland 7-5 over Italy (2-3); Denmark 13-7 over Norway; and Italy 8-2 over Lithuania … Seven of the 32 teams marked 3-0 starts two days of the 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Summerside, P.E.I.. They are Jennifer Jones/Brent Laing, Laura Walker/Kirk Muyres, Alex Robichaud/Melissa Adams, Megan Smith/Douglas Thomson, Amanda Sluchinski/Aaron Sluchinski, Kira Brunton/Jacob Horgan, who stunned Olympic trials champs Jocelyn Peterman/Brett Gallant 6-5, and defending champions Kadriana Lott/Colton Lott. The big news of Monday was a two-loss day for Peterman/Gallant — now 1-2 — as they also fell to Emily Riley/Jesse Mullen in an 8-6 afternoon affair … The action continues Tuesday at the mixed doubles nationals with draws at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. — all times ET, with select games live-streamed on Curling Canada’s YouTube channel.
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