Canada earns spot in playoffs at 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship after two-win day

UIJEONGBU, SOUTH KOREA — Canada’s Team Rachel Homan has assured itself a spot in the playoffs at the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship, but there’s still more work to be done after earning an eighth win on Thursday evening in South Korea.

Team Homan picked up its second victory of the day at Uijeongbu Arena, the latest an 11-2 win against Japan’s Team Sayaka Yoshimura (3-7) to improve to 8-2. 

That latest win was enough to earn skip Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown and national coaches Viktor Kjell and Renée Sonnenberg a ‘Q’ in the standings. 

The top six teams in the 13-team field will earn a spot in the playoffs, with the top two teams earning a bye directly to Saturday afternoon’s semifinals. The bottom four teams compete in the qualifying round earlier in the day. Now, Canada’s goal is to earn one of those two spots, and after two wins on Thursday, the Ottawa team is trending upwards.

South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim (8-2) and Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg (8-2) also secured playoff spots with wins tonight. If the playoffs began today, Canada would claim the second bye based on its last-stone draw in the three-way tie with Sweden and South Korea. However, Miskew is focused on what Canada can control, knowing that other factors beyond her team’s control could still impact its standing.

“We can’t control anything else and how that plays out. All we can control is our next two games for now, so we’ll try to go out and be sharp tomorrow. If we can win our two games and if it works out that way, then great. If we have to play in the qualifier, then that’s fine too,” Miskew said.

Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni (9-1) sits in first place and became the first team to clinch a playoff berth earlier this afternoon.

Canada jumped out to an early lead against Team Yoshimura and never let up. With hammer to start, Team Homan blanked the first end, setting the stage for a strong second. There, they struck first with a textbook team effort — from the throw to the sweep to the line call — executing a perfect draw to the button for two. In the fourth end, Canada forced Japan to a single point, thanks to one of Homan’s signature big-weight doubles. Then, after Japan flashed its final takeout attempt, Homan capitalized with a draw for three, giving Canada a commanding four-point lead at the fifth-end break.

The teams traded singles in the sixth and seventh ends. In the eighth, Canada broke the game open with a steal of five, sparked by a series of outstanding shots. Miskew executed a corner tick and rolled into the house to sit three. Fleury followed with a precision takeout, threading the target stone through a narrow port with just inches to spare. Homan then sealed the deal with a straight runback, removing Japan’s shot stone and leaving Canada lying five. On its last, Team Yoshimura came up light on its draw, unable to limit the damage.

Last night, ice technicians sandpapered the stones to increase curl heading into the final stretch of the event. While this is a common practice, teams must adjust to the new trajectories. Team Homan used its 7-6 extra-end win over Switzerland earlier in the day to fine-tune its understanding of the rocks and had everything dialled in perfectly for tonight’s game against Japan.

“The way that we were throwing the rock when they were straighter earlier this week was no longer how we wanted to throw it. Last game we still had a few of those, where the releases were more for the straight surface,” Miskew said. “Tonight, we were committing to a nice positive throw, and it’s curling lots, and we can always manage it that way. We switched up the mindset out there and then just wanted to come out and be sharp. We know the mistakes are going to happen, but we just battle back from them.”

Canada wraps up the round robin on Friday with back-to-back games. Up first is a game against Italy’s Team Stefania Constantini (4-6) at 1 a.m. (all times ET), followed by a 6 a.m. match against China’s Team Rui Wang (6-4).

In other Draw 17 games, South Korea’s Team Gim rolled through Lithuania’s Team Virginija Paulauskaite (0-11); Sweden’s Team Hasselborg doubled China’s Team Wang 8-4; and Norway’s Team Marianne Roervik (5-6) picked up a 6-3 victory against Team Tabitha Peterson of the United States (3-7).

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TSN, Curling Canada’s Season of Champions broadcast partner, will provide live coverage of all Canadian round-robin games and playoff games. Click here for the full broadcast schedule.

Non-Canadian round-robin games are available through World Curling’s streaming platform, The Curling Channel.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible here.