Homan rink ends their Olympic competition with gutsy win over OAR
Canadians dug early hole but clawed their way out of it to win 9-8
By Pete Evans, CBC Sports
Rachel Homan's Canadian curling rink bounced back from their playoff elimination earlier in the day with a comeback win over the Olympic Athletes from Russia to end their tournament.
Team Canada, which had been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs earlier in the day with a loss to Team Great Britain, dug itself into an early hole by giving up four points in the first end.
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But Homan and her team clawed their way back in a back-and-forth match, winning four of the next five ends for a 6-5 lead.
Team OAR then took the seventh and eighth, before Canada tied it up at eight with a two-point ninth end.
That meant the Russian athletes had the final stone coming down for the decisive 10th end, but Homan managed to force them into a tough final shot with a masterful tap-back to be sitting one.
Russian skip Victoria Moiseeva attempted to return the favour with the last rock, but her angle was just off — she tapped Homan's shot stone closer to the button, giving Canada the 9-8 win.
Canada ends the tournament with a record of 4-5, good enough for sixth place in the 10-team field.
After the game, Homan said she was pleased with her team's perfomance, even if the result wasn't what they were hoping for.
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"It was a tough field and we came up a little bit short of expectations of ourselves," she told the CBC after the game.
On Twitter, the team added how proud they were to don the maple leaf.
It didn’t go our way this week but we left it all out there. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our fans for their continued love and support of our team. It is a tremendous honour and privilege to wear the Maple Leaf. 🇨🇦 ❤️ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/pyeongchang2018?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#pyeongchang2018</a>
—@TeamHomanCanadian curling icon Glenn Howard, who is coaching the British team led by Eve Muirhead, said the Canadians acquitted themselves well, but the tournament shows how the rest of the world has caught up.
"Folks, let's wake up. Don't be hard on Rachel," Howard said. "The improvement from Vancouver to Sochi, from Sochi to here is unbelievable. Who would have thought certain countries would do as well as they did?"
"They're getting the knowledge, getting what they need to do," Howard said. "Whatever they feel they're missing in their game, they're going to find it and they're bringing it in."
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With files from The Canadian Press