By Jonathan Brazeau
Canada will be in good hands with Team Rachel Homan and Team Brad Jacobs heading to the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Homan and Jacobs emerged victorious at the Montana's Canadian Curling Trials that wrapped up last weekend in Halifax. Both teams finished first in round-robin play with 6-1 records and swept the best-of-three finals in two games each. Homan defeated hometown heroes Team Christina Black in the women's final, with Jacobs edging Team Matt Dunstone on the men's side.
Without sounding like a broken record, the two-time reigning Canadian and world champion Homan is on another level right now. Each member of the Ottawa-based team — Homan, third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes — led their respective positions in player percentages through the trials. Homan has also won all three Grand Slam of Curling women’s titles this fall, with two more events in the series to come before the Winter Olympics.
Jacobs is the reigning Brier champion and earned bronze at the World Men’s Curling Championship last season. The Calgary-based club is battle-tested with all four members of the team — Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert — having medalled at the Olympics before. They've been there, done that.
“We built this team for this moment and to do it our way, from all the experience and things we took along the way, it’s very gratifying," Team Jacobs lead Ben Hebert said after the trials win. "I’m super grateful."
Homan will enter as the gold-medal favourite. Jacobs's kryptonite is Scotland's Bruce Mouat, but then, he's not alone in that category.
FIRST END: Some alternate facts, Tyler Tardi was named as Team Jacobs's alternate on Monday for the Winter Olympics.
Tardi was the natural choice, having served as their fifth man during the World Men’s Curling Championship and the Pan Continental Curling Championship. The 27-year-old Tardi, who now lives in Calgary, is versatile, having thrown second and third stones for skip Kevin Koe. He has skipped in the past as well, capturing back-to-back gold medals at the World Junior Curling Championships in 2018 and 2019.
Tardi also filled in for Gallant during last season’s Players’ Championship, helping Jacobs reach the semifinals. That experience led to this gem of a quote from Tardi during the event after being on the bench at the men’s worlds: “The cardio has been a bit of a challenge after I was sitting on my ass for a week and a half just eating snacks every day, but it’s been a lot of fun so far.”
It's possible Tardi might not be riding the pine the entire time in Cortina and could see some action. Gallant will be competing in mixed doubles, which begins before the Winter Olympics opening ceremony and is set to wrap up with the gold medal game on Feb. 10. Considering the men’s tournament begins the following day, Gallant may not even have a day off between competitions and could use a night off at some point.
SECOND END: It’s the nature of the Olympic Trials: dreams achieved for two teams, heartbreak for everyone else.
Team Dunstone came close, losing both games of the men’s final by one point each, pushing Team Jacobs to the limit. Dunstone also fell to Jacobs in last season’s Brier final.
The more big games the Winnipeg skip plays, the more experience he earns that will help him the next time.
THIRD END: What a week it was for Black, reaching the women's final with the hometown crowd on her team's side.
Although they needed a little outside help to qualify for the semifinal based on the last stone draw, let’s not forget they were bronze medallists at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts last season. This team is for real.
With a place for the 2026 Scotties already locked down via last season’s Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) points, Black will be a medal contender there again.
FOURTH END: Since Homan is heading to Cortina, things have shuffled for the 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
The two-time reigning champ Homan was slated to return as Team Canada, but with the Scotties running from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1 in Mississauga, Ont., it’s too tight a turnaround before the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Besides, you wouldn’t want to risk injury or fatigue so close.
That means last year’s runner-up, Team Kerri Einarson, gets promoted to the Team Canada slot. Einarson already earned a spot based on CTRS points, so that berth will now be awarded after provincial playdowns to the highest-ranked team this season that hasn’t already qualified.
Alberta’s Team Serena Gray-Withers (107.675 points), Manitoba’s Team Kaitlyn Lawes (104.700), B.C.’s Team Taylor Reese-Hansen (104.700), B.C.’s Team Corryn Brown (87.288) and B.C.’s Team Kayla MacMillan (86.113) are among those in close contention.
Oh, and all five of those teams will be competing in the HearingLife Canadian Open’s Tier 2 event in Martensville, Sask., in two weeks. May the odds be ever in your favour.
FIFTH END: It’s been an age-old question in curling: If you know you’re going to win the semifinal, would you prefer to play in that game over receiving a direct bye to the final?
You could be tempted to say yes, as the semifinal is the first time there's just one game playing in the arena and familiarizing yourself with how the rocks and the ice react to that environment could be an advantage to carry into the final. (Also, consider how challenging the ice was at times during the week.)
The downside is, you’re not starting with the hammer in the final and with the new best-of-three format, it means the top team could afford to make mistakes in Game 1 and not have it completely ruin their Olympic dreams. After a close Game 1 in the women’s final, Team Homan appeared way more comfortable and in control during Game 2, looking more like the world No. 1 club we’ve come to expect.
The team with fewer losses starts with the hammer in Game 2 and Game 3, tipping the scales toward the top team should it go the distance.
Interesting note: Since Homan and Einarson finished with 6-1 records in the group, had Einarson won the semifinal over Black and Game 1 against Homan, she would have started Game 2 with the hammer.
SIXTH END: It was a Swedish sweep of the big cheese at the European Curling Championships. Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin and Team Anna Hasselborg claimed the gold medals Saturday in Lohja, Finland.
Edin earned his eighth title in the event with a 5-4 extra-end victory over Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller in the men’s final. Hasselborg secured her third with a 7-5 win over Scotland’s Team Rebecca Morrison on the women’s side. Colleague Kevin Snow has more details in his recap of the event.
The big win came at the right time for Edin, who has had a slow start to the season. Edin entered the week No. 12 in both the world year-to-date and total rankings — on the bubble to qualify for the 12-team Players’ Championship with the cutoff date in two weeks. Edin just missed out on the event last season as he was No. 13 when invitations were handed out.
Meanwhile, Hasselborg was No. 6 in the women’s total rankings, but only because her team has played a lighter schedule this fall. The standings take into account a team’s best five results at the moment, and Hasselborg had played four events before the Euros. By comparison, No. 5 Seung-youn Ha played 10 events, so none of her team’s underwhelming results (e.g. all three Grand Slams) had an impact on her ranking.
Unlike the Pan Continental Curling Championships, the Euros will continue next season as a standalone event, following World Curling’s overhaul of its competition structure with promotion/regulation in place at world championships. This could open the door for countries to send lower-ranked teams to the Euros, providing them with the opportunity to compete on an international stage and not worry about losing a spot at the world championships.
SEVENTH END: As the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials were getting underway, news broke south of the border that Korey Dropkin had stepped back from his men’s team to focus on mixed doubles leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Dropkin is Cortina-bound with Cory Thiesse and was looking to extend his stay at the Winter Olympics with his men’s team, but they fell short by finishing third at the U.S. Olympic Curling Team Trials last month in Sioux Falls, S.D. Danny Casper came out on top and will now need to compete in the Olympic Qualification Event, starting Friday in Kelowna, B.C., to earn one of the final two spots in Cortina. It's a vital week ahead for USA Curling, as colleague Ben Hoppe wrote.
For Dropkin, it makes sense to turn all of his attention to the Olympics. Dropkin and Thiesse captured gold at the 2023 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship and should be medal contenders in Cortina. Although they finished fifth at the worlds last season, it was good enough to secure a spot for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
EIGHTH END: The curling world has lost a legend, an icon of the game and a friend to many on and off the ice. Colleen Jones, who was diagnosed with cancer in early 2023, died last Tuesday at the age of 65.
Known for her magnetic personality and enthusiasm for curling and life, Jones was a trailblazer off the ice — working with a sports psychologist, training in the gym and focusing on nutrition. The results speak for themselves. Jones won her first Canadian women’s curling championship in 1982 at the age of 22, becoming the youngest skip to capture the title. She captured a second Tournament of Hearts in 1999, followed by four straight from 2001-04, along with world championships in 2001 and 2004.
She never stopped living her best life. Jones coached Owen Purcell’s team, featuring her son, Luke Saunders, at third and helped guide them to the championship round of the Montana's Brier earlier this year. She also made the trip to Nashville for the inaugural TCG All-Star event and took to the ice for the celebrity pro-am.
I remember speaking with Jones shortly after the release of her memoir Throwing Rocks at Houses: My Life In and Out of Curling. What inspired her to write the book was returning to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2013 after battling bacterial meningitis three years earlier. Although it wasn’t a large part of the book, she said she hoped the lessons she learned from that experience would stick with readers: "to stay in the now, appreciate what you’ve got now and be thankful for your health."
