Bruce Mouat and Rachel Homan are inevitable. All they need is one tiny mistake from their opponent, and the game will be over.
For Mouat, it was a costly mistake by Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone in the eighth end that created one of the most thrilling Grand Slam of Curling finishes and gave him his 12th Slam title.
While for Homan, even though the GSOC went outside of Canada for the first time in its history, it didn’t stop Canada’s best from claiming her third straight title and 20th of all time at the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe event in Stateline, Nev.
Sunday’s results (Full scores and standings)
Draw 21 - Men’s finals
Mouat 7, Dunstone 6 (SO)
Draw 22 - Women’s finals
Homan 7, Tirinzoni 4
Men’s final
It’s safe to say we’re starting to see the development of the next great curling rivalry with Mouat and Dunstone.
Both, without question, have been the top two teams in the world on the men’s side since the beginning of the year, with each winning one of the first two Grand Slams.
However, Mouat’s 5-2 win came at the hands of Dunstone in what wasn’t a great showing, so his team was looking to even the score at the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe final.
The first seven ends went as you’d expect from the top two in the world — very few mistakes and plenty of high precision shooting — but when it came down to the final shots with the title on the line, it became a game decided by millimetres.
Dunstone held a 6-4 lead without hammer in the eighth, and the end was going exactly how Dunstone wanted.
With his final shot, he had a chance to eliminate Mouat’s only stone in the rings by making a double off his own to win the game.
A shot that looked so routine that Mouat’s lead Hammy McMillan Jr. took off his gloves, a way to pay respect to how good Dunstone is and his expectation that the game was over.
Instead, it was a nightmare situation for Dunstone. He whiffed on the shot and left a wide-open hit for Mouat to score his two points and send the game to a shootout.
For the first time ever with a Slam title on the line, the game was to be decided by a shootout, and it didn’t disappoint.
Dunstone went first and drew just 9.8 centimetres away from the pin, leaving room for Mouat to get the win. As Mouat’s rock came to a stop, both McMillan Jr. and Bobby Lammie were shocked it slid just past the pin, leading to uncertainty of who actually won.
But at that exact moment, the laser measurement read 9.5 centimetres, giving Mouat the victory by 0.3.
“My heart was beating 100 miles per hour,’ Mouat said while talking about his shootout attempt during an interview with CBC's Devin Heroux. “The way that we’re playing it puts a lot of pressure on other teams to make sure that they're perfect."
With the win, Mouat continues to close in on Kevin Martin’s record-holding 18 Slam titles.
Women’s final
Same book, new chapter.
For the fourth straight GSOC final and 10th all-time, Homan was met by Tirinzoni to write some new history.
Both teams were coming into Sunday’s final with a 34-6 record on the 2025-26 season – records that don't even seem real – but Team Homan has even more to flex given they’ve beaten out Tirinzoni in this exact position twice this year already.
Just like the CO-OP Tour Challenge, the last Slam event, Tirinzoni held the hammer in the first end, and just like the last final, the first end was once again trouble for Tirinzoni.
Alina Paetz (throws skip stones for Tirinzoni) had five Homan rocks staring her in the face as she went to throw her draw needing to grab the button.
Although Paetz wasn’t able to make the clutch draw, she only gave up a steal of one to Homan, compared to the Tour Challenge where she gave up a steal of four that basically ended the game.
Getting past the first end without giving up a big score seemed to be all Tirinzoni’s squad needed to do, though, as they settled into the game and created the thrilling match everyone was hoping for.
Tirinzoni got two in the second end and then forced Homan to a single in the third before finishing out the first half with a single to take a 3-2 lead.
The two teams would continue the run of singles by swapping one each in the fifth and sixth ends to set up what looked to be another great finish with two ends to play.
Homan made a beautiful shot with her first in the seventh to set up an easy two points and gave her a one-point lead into the eighth and final end, but for Tirinzoni, it was exactly the situation she wanted to be in.
However, it was almost like the lights were too bright for Tirinzoni’s whole team as multiple tiny mistakes led to the back-breaking one that would give Homan the win.
Tirinzoni had a chance to hit and roll behind her guard, but flashed and that was all she wrote as Homan gave Paetz no shot with her final stone to even score one point to tie.
With the win, Homan now improves to 8-2 against Tirinzoni in Slam finals.
Next on the Grand Slam of Curling tour is the HEARINGLIFE CANADIAN OPEN happening Dec. 16-21 in Saskatoon, Sask.
