Olympics Today: Canada’s Kaillie Humphries makes it three

February 21, 2018, 11:24 AM

During each day of the Games, Olympics Today will keep you up to date on the biggest news and happenings, on and off the field of play.

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While you were sleeping…

Another busy day for Canada on the Korean peninsula — two more medals brings Canada’s total to 21, only three back of the second-place Germans. Triumph on one sheet of ice, bitter disappointment on another. Thrilling comebacks, painful crashes, historic firsts. Everything, as the immortal Bob Cole would say, was happening. Let’s get into it.

Leman finally reaches the podium

In 2010, Brady Leman broke his leg in a crash a day before the Vancouver Games (After Leman, himself, was called up as a last-minute injury-replacement). In 2014, he took a tumble during the Sochi Olympics gold-medal race, finishing a dispiriting fourth behind an all-French podium. In 2018, this happened:

It’s been a long time coming for the 31-year-old, but Leman finally has the podium result he’s been after. And it was nearly a much bigger day on the hill for his country. Leman was one of three Canadians to reach the ski cross final eight, alongside Kevin Drury and Chris Del Bosco. When Leman and Drury both won their semifinal heats and went through to the final, Canada was already operating at a one-medal minimum.

(Del Bosco, meanwhile, suffered a scary crash during his quarterfinal heat, and was taken to hospital with what was described as a "pelvic injury." Pretty sure there aren’t any parts of your pelvis you’d be cool with injuring, and certainly not to the point where a hospital’s services are required.)

Drury went down, too, in the final, losing a ski in the process which ended his Olympics with a frustrating fourth-place finish. But Leman was able to fend off Switzerland’s Marc Bischofberger to the bottom of the hill to claim gold, Canada’s first ever Olympic ski cross medal.

Humphries makes it three

Although she sat fifth after the first two runs of women’s bobsleigh, Kaillie Humphries and her break woman, Phylicia George, were only four one-hundredths of a second behind the third-place Germans and four-tenths of a second off the lead going into the final two trips down the track. Not exactly where the two-time defending gold medallist wanted to be — but not an insurmountable deficit, either.

And when she arrived at Alpensia Sliding Centre Wednesday morning, Humphries quickly got to work cutting into those leads, throwing down her tightest race so far in her first run of the day, quickly moving into bronze medal position.

In the end, that’s where she remained as the Germans and Americans maintained their leads over Humphries in the final run to keep her off the top of the podium for the first time in 12 years. But with the bronze, Humphries brings her Olympic medal total to three, the most of any Canadian bobsleigh athlete.

George deserves mention, as well. The converted track athlete competed in her first ever international race only three months ago after picking up bobsleigh late last summer. She finished sixth in the women’s 100-metre hurdles at the 2012 Olympics, and eighth in 2016. It’s not every day a hurdler rounds out her Olympic resume with bobsleigh bronze.

Men’s hockey gets through to the semis

Canada’s men’s hockey team faced its first do-or-die test of the tournament Wednesday morning, taking on Finland in the quarterfinals. The two teams played a quiet, defensively sound first period, followed by an exciting, chance-filled second, yet remained tied at zero heading to the third.

The most intriguing event of the first 40 minutes may have been an awkward collision between Finnish forward Veli-Matti Savinainen and Canadian goaltender Ben Scrivens, who tried to stay in the game but ultimately had to come out, handing over netminding duties to backup Kevin Poulin. Scrivens was not on the Canadian bench for the third.

Poulin certainly looked ready for his opportunity, making several big saves to keep the game scoreless. And less than a minute into the third, Canada finally capitalized on a scoring chance, as defenceman Maxim Noreau hammered a point shot past Finnish goaltender Mikko Koskinen off a clean Eric O’Dell faceoff win.

Poulin handled things from there, turning away all 15 of the shots he faced to combine with Scrivens for a 21-save shutout to push Canada through to Friday’s semifinals.

Truthfully, while the final score was close, there wasn’t much in this game. Finland mustered only six shots while playing with a one-goal deficit in the third period. Canada simply shut its opponents down.

But, boy, was Wednesday’s other quarterfinal ever a doozy. Team Germany — Germany! — got out to a two-goal lead against Sweden, and was up 3-1 with 10 minutes remaining before the Swedes charged back to tie the game and force overtime.

But only 90 seconds into the extra frame, German forward Patrick Remier undressed a Swedish defender and put the puck past goaltender Viktor Fasth from in tight, completing the upset and sending his team to the semis.

How’s that for a result. One would presume this makes Canada’s path to the gold-medal game — Czech Republic and the Olympic Athletes from Russia play in the other semifinal — a much less challenging one. Canada doesn’t lose to Germany in hockey, right? Safe to say the Swedes felt similarly. The semifinal goes Friday at 7:10 a.m. ET.

End of the line for Team Homan

A little too fitting, perhaps, that Rachel Homan’s final rock against Great Britain Tuesday, a wide in-turn draw, a shot she needed to nail to keep her team in the tournament, came up short.

For the first time since women’s curling became an Olympic sport in 1998, Team Canada will not stand on the podium. That’s the reality after Homan’s rink out of the Ottawa Curling Club fell to Great Britain Tuesday night, 6-5, eliminating Canada from medal contention.

It’s been a stunning six days in Pyeongchang for Homan and Co. — the defending world champions — who began their tournament 0-3, fought back to .500, then dropped two straight to fall short of the semifinals. After a meaningless 9-8 victory over the Olympic Athletes from Russia Wednesday morning, Team Homan finished the tournament 4-5.

What went wrong? Plenty. A rock thrown too light here, a guard grazed there. Questionable shot selection at times, straightforward draws misplaced at others. This wasn’t some epic disaster. Canada was done in by slight yet simple errors. It wasn’t a cannonball through starboard that rapidly sunk the ship, but a series of small leaks that pulled it slowly underwater.

Homan’s rink won 40 ends, lost 36. It scored 68 points, surrendered 59. It stole 12 ends, allowed opponents to steal only seven. The team’s shot percentage (81 per cent) was second in the tournament only to Sweden (82 per cent), who went 7-2. No team scored as many four-point ends as Canada. At plus-9, Canada had the third-best point differential in the tournament.

It didn’t matter. In the end, Canada came up short.

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Prominent Canadians in action on Day 13 (all times Eastern)

• Snowboarding, women’s big air — Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m.

Two Canadians will be in the hunt during Wednesday night’s women’s big air final at Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre, as Laurie Blouin and Spencer O’Brien try to reach the podium. Blouin finished fourth in qualifiers with a score of 92.25, less than a point behind the third-place finisher. O’Brien finished 11th with a mark of 76.75. Blouin already has a silver medal at these games from last week’s slopestyle event, while O’Brien is a five-time X Games medalist.

• Freestyle skiing, men’s halfpipe — Feb. 21, 9:30 p.m.

After Cassie Sharpe blew away the competition on her way to gold during the women’s half of this event Monday, a pair of Canadians will do their best to follow suit on the men’s side. Mike Riddle finished seventh with a score of 82.20 in the qualification run, while Noah Bowman was ninth at 77.20, putting both in Wednesday’s final (A third Canadian, Simon D’Artois, finished a heart-breaking 13th, only two points back of qualifying for the final). Riddle won halfpipe silver medals at both the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi and the 2017 World Championships, while Bowman has a pair of X Games SuperPipe medals on his résumé and finished sixth at the 2017 Worlds.

• Women’s hockey, Canada vs. United States — Feb. 21, 11:10 p.m.

This is the big one. The latest instalment in hockey’s fiercest rivalry will be contested Wednesday night at Gangneung Hockey Centre, as Canada and the United States compete for gold. These two teams played a wildly entertaining game during the round robin, which Canada won 2-1, despite being outshot by the Americans 45-23. That game had a little bit of everything and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Wednesday’s affair is just as compelling. These teams very much do not like each other, as evidenced by the free-for-all scrum that took place in front of the Canadian net at the end of last week’s encounter. The U.S. will be out for revenge. Canada will be trying to win its fifth consecutive Olympic gold. Do. Not. Miss. It.

• Short track speed skating, men’s 500m — Feb. 22, 5:00 a.m.

After winning gold in last week’s 1,000-metre, Samuel Girard will try to add another medal in the 500-metre Thursday morning. The 21-year-old picked up 500-metre gold at a World Cup stop in Dordrecht, Netherlands last October, and finished fourth at the most recent world championships. This represents a changing of the guard in Canadian short track speed skating as 33-year-old Charles Hamelin, the two-time 500-metre world champion and 2010 Olympic gold medallist competing in the final games of his career, was penalized in the heats and failed to qualify for the quarterfinals.

• Short track speed skating, women’s 1,000m — Feb. 22, 5:14 a.m.

After picking up a pair of bronze medals earlier in these games — and becoming the first Canadian women’s short track speed skater to win two individual medals at an Olympics — Kim Boutin will try to reach a third podium in the 1,000-metre Wednesday morning. Working in Boutin’s favour is that this is her best distance — the 23-year-old won a gold and two silvers in the 1,000-metre over four world cup stops this season. Joining Boutin in the field will be Valerie Maltais and Marianne St-Gelais, who won silver in this event at the most recent world championships.

• Men’s curling semifinals, Canada vs. USA — Feb. 22, 6:05 a.m.

Wednesday morning’s 8-2 thumping of Denmark moved Kevin Koe’s Glencoe-based rink to 6-3 at these Games, locking up second place in the standings and a date with the United States in one of Thursday morning’s semifinals. The U.S. finished 5-4 with one of its wins coming over Canada, 9-7, only a couple days ago, a back-and-forth contest that took 11 ends to decide. It was Canada’s first-ever loss to the U.S. in Olympic curling. Canada’s been in finer form throughout the tournament, with an 86 per cent team shooting percentage versus 79 per cent for the United States. U.S. skip John Shuster has been playing somewhat below his standard, shooting just 77 per cent, while Koe’s humming along at 85 per cent for the Games.

• Short track speed skating, men’s 5,000m relay — Feb. 22, 6:52 a.m.

Canada finished a disappointing sixth in this competition at the 2014 Games in Sochi, but will improve on that this year as one of the four teams competing in the final. Rounding out the field is two usual suspects in China and South Korea, and a bit of a surprise in Hungary, which edged the United States in one of the qualification heats to reach the final. Girard, Hamelin, Charle Cournoyer and Pascal Dion will look to reach the podium for Canada.

Sportsnet dispatches from Korea

Here’s a must-read from Shi Davidi, who speaks to Canadian veterans about their experiences during the Korean War in the early 1950’s.

Davidi also has reaction from Team Homan at the end of a disappointing week.

And, Shi helps you relive the chaos and confusion of Monday’s short track women’s 3,000-metre final, in which an errant warm-up track glide cost Canada a medal.

Finally, Davidi has a Q&A with Canadian figure skater Gabrielle Daleman (who sits seventh with a score of 68.90 after Tuesday’s short program) about mental preparation, confidence, and overcoming bullying.

Wednesday morning, when Brady Leman finally reached his first Olympic podium after bitter disappointments in 2010 and 2014, Kristina Rutherford was there, and she has the story of how it all came together.

Rutherford also tees up Wednesday night’s women’s hockey gold-medal game between Canada and the U.S., which Canadian forward Brianne Jenner describes as "a battle for the ages."

Around the web

The New York Times takes an interesting look at the lopsided physiques of short track speed skaters.

The Guardian digs into the data to figure out which Olympic sports — both winter and summer — are most dangerous to its competitors.

"We are crazy," admits the 55-year-old father of Swiss freestyle skier Mischa Gasser, who biked over 10,000 miles from Zurich to Pyeongchang to watch his daughter compete.