'Rest' best for Team Homan amid a wicked curling schedule at worlds

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It’s gotten busy for Rachel Homan and Canada at the 2025 LGT Women’s World Curling Championships.

We’re talking two-games-a-day heavy through to the end of Friday’s round-robin wrap-up in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

The packed schedule began Tuesday — Day 4 opening with an early morning affair and ending with an evening challenge.

Wednesday? The same.

And Thursday? Wash, rinse and repeat.

Then comes Friday for Homan and her Ottawa Curling Club crew, with its two concluding scheduled contests — one after another in the afternoon and evening — to finalize their place in the standings ahead of the playoffs.

That’s upwards of six hours of curling each day — a trio of split shifts and the ugly back-to-back to cap off the round robin.

Oof.

“Rest,” said Canada lead Sarah Wilkes, with a chuckle when asked how the reigning champs manage the four bustling days of these worlds followed by the biggest games of the event — those playoff wars on the weekend in a bid to defend their world title.

“It’s go back to the hotel and rest,” reiterated Wilkes. “Get to sleep as soon as we can, and get back out here in the morning.”

Even between games, there’s not much exciting going on with Team Homan.

It’s hotel time for napping and watching other draws in action at these worlds, while keeping their mind on the ball by playing the word association game ‘Connections’ on a smart phone.

They’ve brought along some comfort food — Tostitos tortilla chips, salsa, hummus, sponsored tins of tuna and Emma Miskew’s ‘famous energy balls’ — to help keep them mentally sound.

And they bought an espresso machine upon arrival in South Korea.

But otherwise, it’s all curling all the time.

And the schedule especially dictates that right now — halfway through their 12-game round-robin slate at Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Rink.

It’s not like they can skate their way to the end, either.

Not yet anyway.

There’s plenty of work to do to ease their ride to the end-game.

Of course, skip Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown and national coaches Viktor Kjell and Renée Sonnenberg want to finish in the top two when the round robin is complete.

After their early Wednesday battle — that an 11-7 loss to Korea’s Gim Eun-ji as part of the day’s doubleheader — Canada stood third at 5-2 behind with the 6-1 host team.

Only Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni topped them both with a perfect 7-0 mark.

But the race for one of the top-two spots isn’t confined to just those three teams, with Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg earning a fifth win early Wednesday and Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont, Norway’s Marianne Roervik and Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg all on four wins heading into later-day play in South Korea.

Canada gets Norway in their second game Wednesday (6 a.m. ET, TSN).

So it’s a hectic time for the Canadians.

HOW THEY LOST TO SOUTH KOREA

After a back-and-forth first five ends, South Korea pulled away in the second half of the game, earning the 11-7 win over the Canadians.

Team Homan mounted a late-game surge but came up short of victory.

Homan made a thin-double for three, trailing by four in the ninth. The Canadians attempted to set up a steal in the 10th end but couldn’t get the job done. The Canadians attempted to tuck a draw behind a top-eight South Korean stone but ticked off it. That left Gim with a hit for three and the win.

“Yeah … it hurts,” admitted Fleury. “We would have liked to have played a little bit better, but lots of learning to be done. There’s a lot that we’ll take away from that game. Just a little bit of rock placement, rock management, some line-calling and some stuff with the sheet.”

Both teams put on a clinic, with Canada shooting 90% and South Korea clocking in at 94% efficiency.

Wilkes threw a perfect 100% game. But South Korean skip Gim stood out as the most significant difference-maker in the game, shooting 94% and outscoring Homan by 15 percentage points.

“They always play well,” said Fleury. “We know that they would come out strong, and they did. They made a lot of shots out there.”

It is the second year in a row that Gim has bettered Homan in the round-robin at worlds. Last year, Canada bounced back to defeat the South Koreans in the semifinal, en route to winning the gold. Earlier this season, Homan beat Gim twice at the Pan Continental Curling Championships, including in the gold-medal game.

On Wednesday, Homan faced an onslaught of challenging shots that she was close to making, such as in the second end when she played an in-off to try and score. The shot ran over the top of the target, resulting in a steal of one for South Korea.

Canada replied in the third with a deuce after Miskew played a runback to open up the middle and get her team’s corner guards into play. However, Team Gim matched that in the fourth, scoring a deuce of its own and forcing Canada to a single in the fifth.

The South Korean, which calls Uijeongbu home, pulled away in the second half of the game. A combination of Canada being just off on rock placement and South Korea making two beautiful final shots led to Gim scoring a three in the sixth end.

Homan hoped to score a couple of points in the seventh but had to settle for a single after playing a double that bumped its own stone back a little too far. Canada could not limit the damage in the eighth, as Team Gim scored another deuce to extend its lead late in the game.

HOW HOMAN BEAT TURKEY

Homan & Co. cruised to an 8-3 victory late Tuesday over Turkey’s Dilsat Yildiz (0-7).

They put the game away in the eighth end, when Homan played a hit-and-roll off a Canadian stone and onto a Turkish one to score three.

“That game was the first time on that sheet, and I think every team here throws it a little bit different, too,” Homan said. “So there’s that challenge, as well.

“In Canada, we throw it a little bit more similar and every country has their theory on how to throw it,” continued Homan. “So sometimes you’re learning your own lines, and that’s all you’ve got to go off of, and that makes it a little bit more challenging. We’re just trying to communicate and stick with each other, because it’s a long week and a lot of games.”

Turkey started the game with hammer but couldn’t score in the opening frame. The Canadians stole a single in the first and tacked on another two points after the opposition missed a double on its last in the second.

When Canada looked to be running away with the game, skip Yildiz halted it and showcased some of her big-shot ability in the third end. Canada looked poised to steal, but Yildiz made a wide in-off, ricocheting off a stone inches away from the sideboard and into the house to score two.

“We had a couple of mistakes when we ended up with the pile of guards, but that wasn’t on purpose,” Homan said. “(Yildiz) made the in-off for two — that was a great shot.

“But we just stuck to our game plan and executed a little bit more precise. They had a couple of unfortunate misses, but I thought it was a really good battle.”

Canada was forced to a single point in the fourth, and Turkey blanked the fifth to trail two with hammer at the fifth-end break.

However, Team Dilsat could not keep its momentum tuned up in the sixth. On her last, Homan made a freeze with her rock — dragged in by dynamo sweeper Wilkes — and forced Turkey into a runback. Dilsat failed to capture the magic of her in-off and gave up a Canadian steal.

Homan’s draw weight has been rock solid this week. The skip clocked a 92 per cent draw efficiency and was 88 per cent accurate on all draws heading into the game.

“I have huge confidence in (Emma and Sarah) being able to put it on the right spot and have really good communication,” Homan said. “It’s been great. They’re amazing sweepers and I’m lucky to play with them.”

Canada forced Turkey to a single in the seventh end and set up the score of three for the win in the eighth.

EXTRA ENDS

Canada downed USA’s Tabitha Peterson 8-4 early Tuesday in arguably their best performance of the worlds. Canada converted for two in three of four times when scoring with the last stone for a near-textbook victory. “Getting two in those ends feels really good for the momentum,” said Wilkes of deuces in the second, fourth and eighth ends. “It felt like we put together everything we learned from all the previous games and came out there confident knowing what the sheet was going to do, what the rocks were doing.” … Korea suffered its first loss of the worlds Tuesday by dropping a 9-6 game to Switzerland, which capped a two-win day by beating Italy’s Stefania Constantini (2-5) 8-5 later. Norway also enjoyed a two-win Tuesday with respective 8-7 and 9-8 wins over Lithuania’s Virginija Paulauskaite (0-7) and China’s Wang Rui (3-3) … Also Tuesday, it was: Scotland’s Sophie Jackson (3-4) 9-2 over Lithuania; China 8-7 over Italy; Sweden (4-3) over Scotland 5-3; Denmark (4-2) 9-3 over Turkey; and USA (3-3) 9-6 over Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura (2-4) … After Day 3 of the 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Summerside, P.E.I., four teams own 5-0 records. They are Amanda Sluchinski/Aaron Sluchinski and Kira Brunton/Jacob Horgan, Laura Walker/Kirk Muyres and defending champions Kadriana Lott/Colton Lott. Tuesday’s highlight was an 11-4 win by Paige Papley/Evan Van Amsterdam (4-1) over curling legends Jennifer Jones/Brent Laing (4-1) … The action continues Wednesday with round-robin 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.

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

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