Home-ice advantage may be a real thing in curling — just ask Canada’s Team Kerri Einarson, who are headed to the Players’ Championship final in Steinbach, Man.
In the previous four Grand Slam of Curling events this season Einarson and her team's best result was bowing out in the quarterfinals twice, but now the Canadian skip will have a chance to win her seventh Slam title and first since 2024.
Einarson earned the right by beating only the most decorated GSOC champion of all time, Rachel Homan, and her team in the semifinals.
It was a back-and-forth battle with both teams feeding off the Manitoba crowd, but in the end it was Einarson who felt the presence of her home province more, grabbing the 7-6 victory in an extra end.
Homan has now lost just five games to Canadian teams since the end of the 2023-24 season and four of those losses are at the hands of Einarson.
Saturday’s results (Full scores and standings)
Draw 16 (Tiebreakers)
Wrana 9, Fujisawa 1
Shuster 8, Mouat 6
Draw 17 (Quarterfinals)
Whyte 6, Shuster 4
Einarson 8, Wrana 7 (EE)
Xu 7, Retornaz 5
Gim 6, T. Peterson 4
Draw 18 (Semifinals)
Waddell 5, Xu 4
Tirinzoni 7, Gim 4
Whyte 5, Y. Schwaller 4
Einarson 7, Homan 6 (EE)
All-Scottish final on the men’s side
For the first time this season there will be an all Scottish final on the men’s side and surprisingly enough, it won’t involve World No. 1 Bruce Mouat.
Instead, it will be World No. 5 Ross Whyte, who will be playing in his third GSOC final this season — he finished runner-up in the first two — taking on World No. 11 Kyle Waddell, who will be playing for a GSOC title as a skip for the first time in his career.
Honestly though, this isn’t a surprise considering how well the two teams have played this week.
Waddell ran through the round robin with a 5-0 record, including a 7-6 shootout victory over Whyte himself. Waddell outscored his opponents by 17 points on his way to the No. 1 seed, securing the quarterfinal bye.
The biggest takeaway from Waddell’s team so far this week has been how calm they are with every situation, even when they have been in trouble, they stay relaxed and act like they’ve been in these situations before as a team, even though they actually haven’t.
It continued in Waddell’s semifinal match against China’s Xiaoming Xu. Waddell didn’t make any highlight reel shots like he did in the round robin, but instead, he played a very strategically sound match that, in the end, just beat Xu’s gameplan.
While Whyte’s round robin record may have a two in the loss column this week compared to Waddell’s perfect record, those two losses have only come in a shootout.
In those two games, including the one against Waddell, it could’ve been a coin flip to determine who was actually the better team as Whyte was in the battle each time. His other victories proved that. He straight-up dominated both Brad Jacobs and Mike McEwen before beating Matt Dunstone pretty convincingly as well.
Just like Waddell, Whyte’s team has that same level of calmness and belief they can get out of any mess or make difficult shots to convert massive ends, and it’s the sole reason they won their semifinal match against Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller.
Silvana (GSOC Finals) Tirinzoni
Death, taxes and Team Tirinzoni making the GSOC finals.
With Tirinzoni’s semifinal win over Korea’s Team Eun-ji Gim, the Swiss squad has not only reached all five Slam finals this season, but dating back to last year’s Players’ Championship (which her team won), this marks their sixth-straight GSOC final.
And this might have been their most impressive victory to reach the finals yet.
Gim controlled the first half of the game against Tirinzoni, leading 3-2 at the break with the hammer heading into the fifth end. Tirinzoni couldn’t generate anything offensively while playing with the hammer and needed to change something if she was going to win the game.
So, instead, Tirinzoni decided to try and generate offence without the hammer.
Tirinzoni left Gim a double in the fifth end for a single point, but would actually steal one to tie the game after Gim rolled the shooter out of the rings.
Again, in the sixth end, Tirinzoni played the end to generate either a steal or a force to one point, but thanks to Gim coming up light on her draw, Tirinzoni was able to steal two more points, taking a 5-3 lead.
From there, it was just routine for Tirinzoni, who went on to win 7-4.
The most impressive part about this finals streak is the fact Tirinzoni continues to find different ways to win each game, making her team the most dangerous in the field besides Homan.
Mouat struggles to find draw weight
Usually when Mouat makes two ridiculous shots that results in his team scoring four points it’s going to be a long game for their opponent.
However, that wasn’t the case for Mouat in his tiebreaker against USA’s Team John Shuster. While Mouat’s back-to-back shots were impressive and put his team back in the game, it’s important to note both were hits, not draws.
Mouat had no problem making hits all game, but for whatever reason he couldn’t find his draw weight. In the seventh end with game tied 6-6, Mouat had a golden opportunity to draw into the four-foot and freeze on Shuster’s rock sitting back button.
Halfway down the ice though Mouat’s second Bobby Lammie surprised everyone by yelling, “we’re like a guard.” Lammie wasn’t lying though, forget even reaching the house, Mouat’s stone just got over the hogline, coming up 20 feet short of the mark.
The big miss ended up giving Shuster two points and an 8-6 lead.
Mouat was given a chance to redeem himself in the eighth end. With Mouat’s first shot he had an open draw to sit in the top four-foot.
Again though, Mouat couldn’t find his draw weight, and this time threw too heavy.
As a result, there was nothing for Mouat to even attempt for two on the final shot and had to shake Shuster’s hand in defeat.
If Mouat had his draw weight (like he usually does) the four-point end probably would’ve propelled Mouat to at least the quarterfinals, if not more. Now the Scottish team has to reset and focus on finding their game with the Olympics starting in one month.
Crown Royal Players’ Championship finals coverage starts tomorrow at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
Featured matches
Waddell vs. Whyte at 12 p.m. ET/ 9 a.m. PT
Einarson vs. Tirinzoni at 4:30 p.m. ET/ 1:30 p.m. PT
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