By Adam Laskaris

Though it’s not the colour she wanted, Canadian skip Rachel Homan finally has an Olympic medal.

Saturday’s bronze medal game consisted of two classic rivals, with the Canadians taking on their neighbours to the south in the United States. And it was the Canadians coming out with the win via a 10-7 score.

While Canada’s rink had been considered a gold medal favourite by many due to winning the last two world titles, the Americans were a bit of an outsider coming in.

Ranked 13th in the world and having to earn their spot in Italy via the final Olympic Qualifcation Event last December, simply making the medal round could’ve been considered a success for the United States.

Though both teams would’ve been disappointed to not make the gold medal game, it was a pretty quick turnaround to be back on the ice for another high-profile game on Saturday.

The teams had two different paths to get there, however: Canada went 1-3 to start and needed five wins in a row to even make the playoffs, while the Americans started 4-1 before splitting their final four games to end the week with identical 6-3 records.

"We had to win five sudden death games in a row to even get [to the playoffs]," Canada's Emma Miskew said to CBC's Bryan Mudryk after the bronze medal game. "The chance to play for a medal after our start... we just wanted to keep going."

Game recap

With the Americans starting with hammer, the teams traded singles through the first five ends to give Team USA a 3-2 lead. In the sixth end, an hit for three opened up for Homan after a miss from Tabitha Peterson and Canada took a 5-3 lead.

But Peterson pounced back with a draw for through a tight port to even things up in the seventh end, setting up an exciting finish. But after Peterson was only able to remove one of three Canadian rocks sitting in the house on her last in the eighth end, Homan punched through with the game's biggest moment to take an 8-5 lead. Peterson pushed back with two in the ninth end, but Canada held off the late push with hammer in the final end and didn't even need their final rock thrown to clinch the win.

"Unbelievable. Just so proud of the team, and how hard we fought... we stuck together, and I couldn't be more proud of our fight," Homan said on CBC.

The fourth place finish was the USA's best in the women's event since 2002, when they also fell to Canada in the bronze medal game.

What’s up next?

Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni and Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg take the ice in a heavyweight matchup for all the marbles after knocking off USA and Canada respectively. "Just enjoy ourselves, and trust our processes and just go out there and do our best," Hasselborg said Friday on what it’d take to win. The gold medal game goes tomorrow at 5:05 a.m. ET, and will be the final curling competition of the Winter Olympics.

Lead photo by Anil Mungal/TCG