Alberta's Sturmay, Ontario's Homan clinch playoff berths at Tournament of Hearts
Donna Spencer | The Canadian Press | Posted: February 21, 2024 8:07 PM | Last Updated: February 22
Albertan's team stormed back from 6-1 deficit after 4 sets to defeat McCarville team
A change-up and a settling into new roles has Rachel Homan's curling team extending a stellar season into the Canadian women's curling championship.
Homan (6-0) locked in a playoff berth early at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts with a commanding 10-3 win over B.C.'s Clancy Grandy on Tuesday to secure a booking in the round of six in Calgary.
"We have to stay on our absolute A game," Homan said. "Everyone here is gunning for playoffs right now, and we can't let up at all. There's just phenomenal teams."
Host Alberta, skipped by rookie Selena Sturmay, was also playoff-bound atop Pool A at 6-0 after an extra-end win over Northern Ontario in the morning draw.
Six-time champion Jennifer Jones of Manitoba (5-1) was another playoff early bird in Pool B with a 10-5 doubling of provincial counterpart Kate Cameron.
The top three teams in each pool after Thursday's final draw advance to Friday's playoff round, from which Saturday's four Page playoff teams will be determined.
Tiebreaker games have been eliminated from the format. Head-to-head results followed by cumulative draw-to-the-button scores that precede each game solve ties.
Teams with four losses were eliminated Wednesday.
Defending champion Kerri Einarson (5-1) and Saskatchewan's Skylar Ackerman (4-3) were in Pool A's playoff hunt heading into Wednesday evening's draw.
Northern Ontario's Krista McCarville, Manitoba's Kaitlyn Lawes, B.C.'s Corryn Brown and Quebec's Laurie St-Georges were battling for their playoff lives at 3-3.
Grandy (5-2), Cameron and Nova Scotia's Heather Smith (3-3) remained in contention in Pool B.
The winner of Sunday's final represents Canada at the world championship March 16-24 in Sydney, N.S., and earns a return trip to the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay, Ont., as defending champion.
Homan is a three-time national champion (2013, 2014, 2017) and also reached the final three straight years from 2019 to 2021.
When Homan's lead Joanne Courtney retired in 2022 and career skip Fleury joined the team, Homan stepped away from skipping while still throwing fourth stones. Fleury called the shots and threw third stones while Homan's longtime vice Emma Miskew shifted to second and Sarah Wilkes to lead.
The foursome went 6-2 last year in the Hearts' preliminary round before it was upset in the playoff round by Nova Scotia's Christina Black.
Homan took the broom back this season to go 38-5 in tour events. Homan holds down the No. 1 ranking among women's teams in Canada, as well as No. 2 in the world behind Italy's Silvana Tirinzoni.
"The first year as a team is always going to be a little bit of learning," Miskew said. "It definitely helps having a second year.
"We tried something last year and Rachel, there were a few lines she wasn't seeing not being the one holding the broom for everyone's shot. She thought it might be a little better if she could see everyone's shots to know where to put the broom down for her own."
Homan leads all tournament skips with 91 per cent shooting accuracy and Fleury tops all thirds at 90 per cent. Miskew and Wilkes rank second at their positions at 86 and 88 per cent respectively.
"I feel like we're all in the position that we need to be," Homan said. "You want to be matched up really well and outplay your opposition, and I feel like everyone on our team has the ability to outplay the opposition, right up the lineup, so it's a really good feeling."
Jones, 49, has said this year's Hearts will be her last, whether she wins a record seventh crown or not.
Her shotmaking ability is still there. She executed a long raise double takeout to score three in Tuesday's third end and drew a roar from the WinSport Event Centre.
"It was so fun," the skip said. "It was funny because I could hear my mom. She's like 'yes" and I knew it was my mom. I'll remember that. That one will stick in the memory banks.
"There's no better feeling in the world to me than being on the ice, so I'm soaking that up. Got my family here. I'm letting my kids sleep with me sometimes at night, which I've never done before, but they're sleeping in so they're holding up their end of the bargain."
WATCH | Jennifer Jones joins That Curling Show to reflect on sparkling career: