HALIFAX — Rachel Homan put up a guard with her last rock, and then all the world No. 1 skipper and her team could do was wait and see whether it would be enough to put them a win away from an Olympic berth.
The shot was there Friday afternoon for Nova Scotia skip Christina Black to score three with her last to earn a major upset, and Black smiled as the crowd roared while she slid down the Scotiabank Centre ice before throwing her final rock.
“It was definitely there, but it wasn’t super easy and we kind of just had to put a hope out there,” said Team Homan second, Emma Miskew.
Well, that hope worked. The shot came up a touch light to get the necessary takeout, and Team Homan walked away with a 5-4 win, now a victory away from punching a ticket to the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics in this best-of-three Montana’s Curling Trials final.
“We kept it within striking distance and going into the 10th, just hoping we’d have an opportunity to score two or score three, and we were setting it up pretty good,” Black said. “But I just don’t think my shot was possible unless I could throw it a lot harder. We gave it a good run, though.”
Team Black is now 1-7 against Homan all-time, its lone win coming at the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, and a second career win needs to come Saturday afternoon for Black to stay alive and force a third and deciding game on Sunday for the chance to represent Canada at the Olympics.
The opener of the men’s final was another close one later Friday between Canada’s top two ranked teams, Matt Dunstone and Brad Jacobs, and it was Jacobs who won a mistake-riddled, momentum-shifting shootout to the tune of 9-8.
“I still don’t know if we won that game,” the skip from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. said, when it was over. “That’s kinda what it feels like.”
Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Herbert got out to an early 3-0 lead thanks to a steal of two in the second end, and they led 5-2 heading into five when the momentum took its first big swing. With Dunstone sitting three, Jacobs missed a runback takeout that saw his shooter spill, leaving Dunstone a draw for four. Just like that, the Winnipeg skip had his first lead of the game, up 6-5 at the halfway mark.
The mistakes kept coming. As Hebert put it: “Entertaining for the fans, hard on the brains for the curlers on the ice.”
In six, Dunstone missed a takeout and his shooter spilled, leaving Jacobs sitting three with hammer. Then Jacobs’s first floated right through the house with an assist from Colton Lott's hearty sweep, giving Dunstone a takeout double, which he nailed. Instead of scoring three or four, Team Jacobs had to settle for a deuce and a 7-6 lead.
Dunstone blanked seven and eight, and then in nine, Jacobs sent a rocket down the ice for the takeout double and just missed it underneath, leaving Dunstone the open draw for two and the 8-7 lead heading into the final end.
And that’s when the final mistake happened: Jacobs was sitting two with hammer, and Dunstone’s hit-and-roll attempt missed Jacobs’s stone entirely and went right through the house, a shot the Winnipeg skipper called a “user error.”
Team Dunstone’s front end is E.J. and Ryan Harnden, Jacobs’s cousins, and the three won Olympic gold together back in 2014. Jacobs said he felt badly for their team with the way the game ended.
“I was expecting to have to make my last one to win that game,” Jacobs said. “That’s what I was thinking. Yeah, is that a huge break? For sure. Will we take it? Absolutely. But I’m allowed to feel bad for my family.”
The skip, Kennedy, Gallant and Hebert are now a win away from a 2026 Olympics berth, which would mark a return trip for all four of them and an attempt to add to their hardware. Gallant, who’s already qualified for the 2026 Games in mixed doubles, has a bronze from the last Winter Games with Brad Gushue; Jacobs won gold in 2014 and Kennedy and Hebert won gold in 2010 with skip Kevin Martin.
On the women’s side for the team that’s one win away, it would mark a return trip to that biggest stage for both Homan and Miskew, after their debut in the women’s team event in 2018. Third Tracy Fleury and lead Sarah Wilkes have never competed at the Olympics before, while Homan, the 36-year-old from Ottawa, would be playing in her third Winter Games after representing Canada in mixed doubles in 2022.
“More of the same,” Homan said of what will be needed to earn a second win and punch that ticket to her third Olympics. “We’ve been in these situations before and finals and big moments, and we’re out there supporting each other and with each other with every shot, every miss. Just trying to learn and trying to get better.”
The five-time Scotties champions and two-time reigning world champions came into this event as the clear team to beat. But Black and her hometown crew of third Jill Brothers, second Jenn Baxter and lead Karlee Everist nearly managed to pull off an upset despite a slow start that saw Team Homan score three straight singles before the home team got on the board.
“We just gave up those two single-point steals, and you just can’t let them get a lead — they’re so good,” Black said. “So we need to keep the game just a little bit closer tomorrow and just give ourselves a better chance to pull it off.”
Team Black played in the semifinal a day earlier and shocked Canada’s second-ranked Kerri Einarson. Black's rink seemed to have a better handle on the ice than Team Homan did.
“Definitely challenging,” Homan said of the conditions. “It kept changing and tough to keep up with, but I thought we stayed really tough together. I thought we made a ton of shots and we were as precise as we could be.”
“We thought when we started the game that the frost was going to stay away, but it was not the case and we definitely struggled a little bit when the frost creeped in,” added Miskew, who curled 65 per cent. “So something to know for tomorrow, and we’ll be a little sharper and hopefully it won’t be as tense near the end of the game.”
Team Homan is now a win away from the goal it's been working toward for a long time.
“It feels great,” Miskew said, though she was quick to point out it’s a one-shot-at-a-time approach, and they aren’t getting ahead of themselves.
Team Black, meanwhile, came into this matchup as significant underdogs, ranked 27th in the world. And while they didn’t have quite enough on Friday to take down the Homan Empire, another chance awaits.
“It’s a must-win game. We felt like today was a must-win game. You know, any time you play them, it’s a must-win game,” Black said.
At the fifth end break on Friday, Black said her team got together for a chat and decided: “Let’s be annoying, just don’t give up, just annoy them and see what happens,” as the skipper recounted, with a grin.
"So that’s what we did, and we were able to bring it down to the last rock.”
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