THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Rachel Homan's curling team was built to win. They've been doing a lot of that.
The top-ranked women's team in Canada and the world arrived at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts the heavy favourite to defend its national title and represent the country in the world championship again.
Homan's season record, including Friday evening's 13-4 win over Jane DiCarlo of Prince Edward Island, was 46-4.
Her team was victorious in the PointsBet Invitational and the Grand Slam's Co-op Canadian Open and Kioti National.
Combined with last season, when Homan went undefeated through the national championship and won world championship gold, the team's record was 113-11.
So the road to a 2025 Canadian women's curling title in Thunder Bay, Ont., goes through Homan, vice Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes out of the Ottawa Curling Club.
"We put this team together two and a half years ago. We knew that there was a lot of potential. It took us kind of a year to figure out where everyone fit and how to maximize everyone's ability and talent, and kind of nail down everyone's role and responsibilities on the team. We've really nailed that," Homan said Friday before her team's first game at the Fort Williams Gardens.
"Now our focus is just training and trying to be as good as we can throughout the year, trying to continually build to this moment and these games and these next 10 days. Anything can happen, but we know that we've done everything we can to be in the best position we can be this week."
Homan and longtime teammate Miskew are chasing a fifth Canadian crown in Thunder Bay, which only 10 women in history have achieved. Fleury seeks her second and Wilkes her third.
The Hearts victor on Feb. 23 represents Canada at the women's world championship March 15-23 in Uijeongbu, South Korea. Homan and Miskew are two-time world champions.
"We'd love to have more international experience as a team and win this week," Homan said. "But I know there's a lot of good teams here."
An experiment of Fleury skipping and Homan throwing fourth stones in Fleury's first season with the team was short lived as they didn't reach the 2023 Hearts final four in Kamloops, B.C.
But the foursome has been formidable domestically and internationally with Homan holding the broom since then.
They've dropped just one game this season to a Canadian opponent, which was October's final of the Grand Slam's HearingLife Tour Challenge against Kerri Einarson.
"We work very hard together and we jell we nicely together, but a lot of those games were very tight and could go either way,' Miskew said. "We found a way to win them. We just don't give up. We stay tough."
Few women in the world can throw as hard and as accurately as the 35-year-old Homan, which makes constructing a multi-point end or a steal against her team difficult.
Having skipped Canada's women at the 2018 Olympic Games and competed in Olympic mixed doubles in 2022 with John Morris, there are few curlers with as much big-game experience as Homan.
"Probably a little bit more resilient and mentally tough over the years," Homan said. "With age and experience, that kind of grows and you keep working on that."
Her team is again the favourite for November's Olympic trials in Halifax to represent Canada in 2026 in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
Homan and Einarson skip the only two women's teams with berths locked in so far.
It didn't go well for Homan, Miskew, Joanne Courtney and Lisa Weagle in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where the Canadians finished outside the playoffs.
That team was obsessed with winning trials and Olympic gold.
"We've all put our careers on hold," Homan said at the 2017 Tournament of Hearts in St. Catharines, Ont. "We're not seeing our friends and family as much as we'd like."
The approach is somewhat different this time around. Homan for one, now has three children under the age of five.
Trials and the Olympic Games are on the horizon, but Miskew says it hasn't been a topic of discussion among them except for the booking of hotel rooms.
"After you've put all your thoughts into that Olympic quadrennial, it can feel really weird at the end of it," Miskew said. "You're like 'did I even think about the process, all those really awesome events, all that time I spent with my team that was so amazing?'
"Having gone (to the Olympic Games), it was a very cool experience, but so is wearing the Maple Leaf at worlds and so is coming to the Scotties every year. That all matters to you and I think it's about enjoying that as well."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2025.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
