First place clinched!

Team Homan wraps up round-robin pool top spot at 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts

One job has been done, but the hard work still remains for Team Canada at the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Rachel Homan’s reigning national and world championship team from Ottawa — vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown and, as of Thursday, coach Jennifer Jones — have checked all the boxes through the first six days at the Fort William Gardens.

Seven straight wins including Wednesday night’s 9-3 victory over Nunavut’s Team Julia Weagle (0-7; Iqaluit) have not only secured a spot in the six-team playoffs that will get underway on Friday, they have also locked up first place in Pool A.

But, noted Miskew, the job is barely half done. Still on the priority list are, ideally, three (four, if necessary) playoff wins that would deposit Team Homan back on the top step of the podium after Sunday’s gold-medal game, with a trip to South Korea for the LGT World Women’s Championship next month to be planned.

“I mean with the playoff format the way it is, you can’t really take your foot off the gas at all,” she said. “Every time we’ve gone out there we’ve just been trying to learn the sheets and rocks. It is a bit of a learning journey every single game, so we’re just trying to get as much info as we can.”

Wednesday night’s triumph was the 18th in succession at the Scotties for this powerhouse unit, including the 11 straight it put together a year ago in Calgary en route to gold. It’s not quite Homan’s best streak; she and Miskew were teammates on a team that won a record 22 straight at the Scotties: its final five in 2013 en route to the title in Kingston, Ont., a perfect 13-0 run a year later in Montreal to repeat as Canadian champs, and then four wins to open the 2015 Scotties in Moose Jaw, Sask.

But if you know Team Homan, you know the team doesn’t really get caught up in records and win streaks.

“We try not to think about the streaks too much,” said Miskew with a smile. “Everyone was talking about it at Worlds (last year in Sydney, when Team Homan had a 27-game win streak snapped in its round-robin finale before going on to win gold), and we were like, we don’t care, we don’t want it to be the final, the last game that ends our streak. So we don’t really think about it too much. We’re trying to go out there with the same intensity every single game, and it’s great to be already locked into first place. That was our first goal — we wanted to be in that game that you get a second chance. We didn’t want to be in a sudden-death game right away, and we got that, so now we know what we have to do to play as well as we can in that game.”

Despite facing a winless Nunavut team, it didn’t necessarily come easily for Team Homan Wednesday night. Homan and Weagle have been skipping against each other in the Ottawa area since their Little Rocks days.

Canada took a 2-1 lead through three ends before a Weagle flash in the fourth led to an open draw to the house to score three for Team Homan

Wednesday night also sorted out the complete playoff picture in Pool A as B.C.’s Team Corryn Brown and Alberta’s Team Kayla Skrlik both locked up spots in the final six with victories to improve to 5-2. Still to be determined is who will finish second and third; second place holds the advantage of a second life in the playoffs, while third place is a loss away from elimination.

Should they both win or both lose their round-robin finales on Thursday afternoon, Team Skrlik would finish second based on its round-robin win over Team Brown.

The playoff format will see the first-place team from Pool A meeting second place from Pool B, and vice versa, in the first round of the playoffs Friday at 1 p.m. (all times Eastern), with the winners going directly to the Page playoff 1-2 game, while the losers meet the third-place finishers in the pools Friday at 7 p.m. The winners of those games will advance to the Page playoff 3-4 game.

The standard Page playoffs commence with the winner of the Page 1v2 game on Saturday at 7 p.m., advancing directly to the final, and the loser playing the winner of the Page 3v4 game (scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday) in the semifinal. 

The semifinal (Sunday at 1 p.m.) winner takes on the winner of the Page 1v2 game in the final at 7 p.m. on Sunday. The winner will represent Canada at the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship March 15-23 in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

Team Skrlik was a 7-5 winner over Prince Edward Island’s Team Jane DiCarlo (1-6; Crapaud), while  Team Brown picked up a solid 9-5 triumph over New Brunswick’s Team Melissa Adams (2-5; Fredericton).

In the other game Wednesday night, Saskatchewan’s Team Nancy Martin (5-3; Saskatoon) scored a 10th-end deuce for a 9-8 win over Alberta’s Team Selena Sturmay (5-3; Edmonton).

Northern Ontario’s Team Krista McCarville (3-4) had the Pool A bye on Wednesday night.

The 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts continues Thursday with draws at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (all times Eastern).

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts are available at www.curling.ca/scoreboard/.

TSN and RDS2 will provide complete coverage of the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule.

For ticket information for the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, go to www.curling.ca/2025scotties/tickets/.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/2025scotties/nouvelles/?lang=fr