Team Homan cruises past Chinese Taipei at 2024 Pan Continental Championships

LACOMBE, Alta. — Knowing there are still tough games later in the week at the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships, Monday morning at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex was no time for Team Rachel Homan to lose its focus.

Suffice it to say, as Chinese Taipei’s Team Ko Yang discovered, focus wasn’t an issue for the Ottawa-based Canadian reps.

Homan, with vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachel Brown and national coaches Viktor Kjell and Renee Sonnenberg, rolled to a 13-0 six-end win to improve to 2-0 in the eight-team round robin.

It was another tidy, efficient performance — the kind that has been a hallmark of this team, which won the world women’s championship last season and put together a 67-7 win-loss record in 2023-24, and is 19-2 in the early going this season.

“I think the No. 1 thing that’s making them so great right now is their willingness to communicate and admit, when things don’t go so well, the role they played in that,” said Sonnenberg. “They’re constantly striving to make each other the best.”

Team Canada got the start it was looking for in the first, taking advantage of a series of misses from their opponents to score five on a draw from Homan.

From there, it was a series of steals — two in the second, singles in the third and fourth ends, three in the fifth, and a game-ending single in the sixth, leaving Chinese Taipei winless in two starts.

“We were definitely trying to keep our focus, and committing to how we want to throw our rocks so we can actually learn the ice map,” said Miskew. “We’ll be back on that sheet, so seeing and feeling good throws, even if the score is a little lopsided in those situations, is still really helpful. We were lucky to be able to get up early and be able to do that, but not all games go that way.”

Sonnenberg was observing the same thing from the coaches’ bench.

“Even this game today, they took the opportunity to try some wide come-arounds, which we don’t play very often,” she said. “They swapped a set of rocks out to see if they could pivot (adjust to throwing different rocks) if they need to do that late in a game, and they managed it really well. They’re always challenging themselves. And there’s that constant striving to be the absolute best at their position. Look at Sarah — sometimes leads don’t get enough credit, but when she doesn’t pinpoint a shot, she’s wanting to know why and wanting to throw it better, and the whole team appreciates that about her. And it feeds up the whole lineup.”

Next up for Team Homan is China’s Team Rui Wang (0-2) Monday at 7 p.m. (all times Mountain) as the team continues its quest to lock up a berth for Canada in the LGT World Women’s Curling Championship in South Korea (the host nation is guaranteed a berth, while the top four finishers in Lacombe besides South Korea will also secure berths for their countries in the world championship).

“All of these teams are so nice — we took a picture with (Chinese Taipei) after, and they were all really sweet,” said Miskew. “I think it’s great for curling to see so many different countries and teams that we don’t normally see competing in this event, and just loving curling. I think that’s only going to grow our sport.”

In other women’s games Monday morning, Japan’s Team Miyu Ueno (2-0) downed China 11-6; South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim (2-0) turned back New Zealand’s Team Chelsea Suddens (0-2) 13-3; and Team Cory Thiesse of the United States (1-1) was a 10-2 winner over Mexico’s Team Adriana Camarena (1-1).

Canada’s Team Brad Gushue, fresh off two wins on Sunday, will play its only game of the day Monday at 2 p.m. against New Zealand’s Team Anton Hood (0-2).

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

All games are being streamed live on The Curling Channel. CLICK HERE for details.

Ticket information for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr