LONDON, Ont. — As each week of the curling tour passes, the Canadian Olympic trials draw nearer and nearer.
The AMJ Masters served as the first major test this season for teams on the road to the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina as the best in the world gathered in one house at the Western Fair Sports Centre. That includes Canada’s best and brightest with six teams on the men’s side and four on the women’s side.
Ottawa’s Team Homan and Winnipeg’s Team Dunstone not only passed but aced the test with flying colours thanks to remarkable resilience.
FIRST END: Rachel Homan’s squad went undefeated en route to capturing the women’s title, capped with a 6-4 victory over Switzerland’s Team Tirinzoni in a battle between the top two teams in the world rankings.
What’s striking is how close Homan kept things on paper, with draw-to-the-button shootout wins over Sweden’s Team Wranå and China’s Team Wang in the preliminary round, plus an extra-end victory over Japan’s Team Tabata in the quarterfinals.
Even in the final, Homan needed to flip the hammer, as Silvana Tirinzoni started with the last rock advantage. That shift came in the third end as Homan drew to sit two on the button, forcing Team Tirinzoni fourth Alina Pätz to tap one and give up a steal on the other to trail 2-1.
Tirinzoni recovered with a deuce in the fourth, however, it was all Homan in the second half. Homan matched with a pair of points in the fifth and sat four counters in the house during the sixth that forced Pätz to draw wide and around to avoid a disaster. Pätz’s shooter crawled to the house, with Tirinzoni helping sweep it in, to give up a steal of two.
Homan continued to pour on the pressure in the seventh, sitting another quad of granite, which forced Pätz to tap for a single. That handed the hammer to Homan for the final frame with a two-point lead. Once again, Team Homan showed no mercy, setting a relatively flat trio of rocks across the house and giving Tirinzoni no chance for a triple on her team’s last to at least attempt to sit two for a potential steal.
“We definitely just kept building as the week went on, learn as much as we could as every game progressed and really just stuck together in every game and tried to make the next one,” Homan said.
SECOND END: Skip Matt Dunstone won three straight out of the gate to top his pool, then sustained his lone loss of the week in the crossover game against Switzerland’s Team Schwaller.
Perhaps that’s what the team needed to stay level-headed. ”A little kick in the butt,” Dunstone later said, and he added they came back and had their best game of the season in the quarterfinals to eliminate Norway’s Team Ramsfjell.
That set up a Brier rematch against Calgary’s Team Jacobs in the semis. The reigning Canadian champions held an early 3-1 lead with a three-ender in the third. Dunstone charged back, settling for a single in four and stealing the tying point in five as he bumped and rolled right to the well-guarded button, leading to skip Brad Jacobs conceding one.
Dunstone scored a deuce in seven while limiting Jacobs to singles in six and eight that pushed the game into an extra end where he held the hammer. Dunstone could see enough of Jacobs’ shot rock in the extra, and with one already in the house, he just needed to peel it out to secure his spot in the final against Team Whyte.
Dunstone also had to flip the hammer on the reigning AMJ Masters champ Ross Whyte, who hadn’t lost a game before the final. Similar to the semifinal, Dunstone gave up a three-spot, this time in the fourth end, to fall behind 3-2. Fortunately for Dunstone, his team was able to battle back and was rewarded with a deuce in the sixth end, retaking the lead.
Whyte needed to make a tough runback on his last in the eighth to keep his title defence alive, as Dunstone carried the hammer into the extra end for a second straight game. Similar to the semis, Dunstone just needed to peel out Whyte’s shot rock on his last to tack two on the board and win 6-4.
Asked about his team's ability to come back, Dunstone said: “It was really easy, just because we had done that. Every game we were in had been a tough game. We weren’t blowing anybody out by any stretch. It felt like a habit today.”
THIRD END: Winning a Grand Slam is always special, whether it’s your first, your second, or your 18th. The Grand Slam of Curling media guide, which someone spent their summer assembling, already needs an update thanks to Homan and Dunstone’s wins.
Homan and second Emma Miskew captured their record-extending 18th Grand Slam women’s title together. Their first just so happened to come at the Masters back in 2012. It's clear Homan is the master of the Masters, reaching the final nine out of a possible 13 times and winning five titles.
Homan and Miskew matched legendary men’s skip Kevin Martin for the most Grand Slam titles won among all players, regardless of division.
"We've curled together for so many years, and to be able to put a team together that is all driving in the same direction and working hard, it's really fun to be able to do that with your best friend,” Homan said.
Team Homan also played in a record-tying sixth consecutive Grand Slam final, after reaching all five of them last season. That equalled Team Einarson’s run of six during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
Dunstone helped Canada capture its milestone 100th Grand Slam men’s title. Combined, Canadian teams have won 145 Grand Slam titles (Scotland remains in second with 16).
Ontario has now taken sole possession of the most Grand Slam women’s titles won by a member association in Canada. Homan’s victory gave Ontario its 19th title in the division, breaking a tie with Manitoba.
FOURTH END: Dunstone earned his second Grand Slam title, nearly six years after claiming his first at the Masters in October 2019.
That was with a completely different lineup and since then, Dunstone has finished runner-up once at the 2022 Tour Challenge.
Third Colton Lott earned his first career Grand Slam championship, while the front-end duo of E.J. and Ryan Harnden checked off the last title they were missing from the list. The Brush Bros. had come close to winning the AMJ Masters when they played with their cousin Jacobs, but finished runner-up twice.
Before they won their first with Team Jacobs a decade ago at the Players’ Championship, E.J. joked that they were the Phil Mickelson of curling. Sure, Team Jacobs had won the Brier and Olympic gold, but a Grand Slam title seemed elusive. Now, the Harndens have won every active event title at least once.
E.J. has a total of 10 to his name, earned two during his tenure with Team Gushue, which keeps him ahead of Ryan, who has won eight.
FIFTH END: As we’ve seen over the past two-plus years, Homan is on a roll, riding so high and achieving her goals.
Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Homan holds a 153-17 record with two world championships, two Canadian championships and five Grand Slam titles. Her team has reached the final in 19 of 22 events they’ve played in. No other women’s team comes close to those numbers.
Team Homan was also the only Canadian women’s club to qualify for the AMJ Masters playoffs. Both Team Einarson of Gimli, Man., and Calgary’s Team Skrlik missed out with 1-3 records. Team Black went 2-2, however, one win came in a shootout, thus the Halifax club received only two points and ended up one point shy of creating a tiebreaker scenario.
SIXTH END: The Canadian men’s teams fared better overall, with not only Dunstone and Jacobs, but also Team Epping qualifying for the playoffs.
Jacobs had to run the gauntlet on Saturday, earning a 5-2 decision over Saskatoon’s Team McEwen in a tiebreaker and then, with the tightest of turnarounds, edging Team Retornaz 4-3 in the quarterfinals.
Toronto-based skip John Epping and his squad scored a key 6-5 victory over Jacobs in pool play and qualified outright with a 3-1 record, but they ran into world No. 1 Team Mouat in the quarterfinals and were ousted in a low-scoring 3-2 affair.
Team Gushue missed the cut with a 1-3 record. Stretching back to last season, skip Brad Gushue and his St. John’s, N.L., crew have failed to qualify for the playoffs in three consecutive Grand Slam events with a combined 2-11 record.
The AMJ Masters was the team’s first event of the season, while most teams had already hit the road at least once, and was the first event since the 15-time Grand Slam champ Gushue announced this season would be his last in competitive curling.
Neither Saskatoon team qualified for the playoffs either. Skip Rylan Kleiter’s club lost all three games in the “Group of Death” against Whyte, Jacobs and Epping, but scored an upset in a shootout over Mouat to finish on a positive note.
Kleiter also made the shot of the week, and possibly the season (even though the season just started), with a super-spinner to score in his game against Whyte.
McEwen is still rehabbing his knee and isn’t quite 100 per cent yet, but said he’s getting there. During his team’s first event of the season two weeks ago in Okotoks, Alta., McEwen skipped but shuffled the lineup and threw lead stones. It’s a good thing he’s married to Dawn McEwen, one of the greatest leads of all time, who could give him pointers, but he said it also gave him a different perspective.
“My biggest job is just managing this game because I’m not throwing last rock, so I’m not the most impactful person throwing-wise, which as skip, you usually are,” he said. “... I could really see, well, OK, I can’t fix things after I’ve done my two stones. Hopefully, I’ve set us up good, and then it came like, wow, my whole job is line calls, game management and reading the ice. Once I accepted that, it really got me into it.
"Even though throwing lead was different in the fact that I didn’t see a variety of shots, but just the whole, wow, I really have to manage this game to the best of my ability. It still got me really involved and motivated to try to outskip the other guy, even though I was throwing lead stones. It was kind of a cool perspective change."
SEVENTH END: Bananas and freezies, oh my! What started with a group of fans wearing banana costumes and cheering for peels at last season’s Masters in Guelph, Ont., has now taken on a life of its own.
Not only were the curling bananas back for more, but The Banana Bar Crawl, consisting of about 200 fans in banana costumes — plus one in a gorilla suit — filled the on-ice lounge area Thursday night.
Even some of the curlers, including Team Homan’s Tracy Fleury plus members of Team Ramsfjell and the Italian wheelchair curling team, got in on the fun at various points of the week.
The last couple of days then saw a group dress up as freezies yelling for, you guessed it, freezes.
All the curlers this reporter spoke to said they loved the energy and excitement the fans brought, creating a vibrant atmosphere that some said was something the sport has been lacking.
The only question is: what’s next? It would be amazing if someone dressed up as the Tick, but please, no Blankman.
EIGHTH END: The AMJ Masters shared the ice on Championship Sunday with the Tier 2 finals and the inaugural GSOC Wheelchair Invitational medal games.
The bronze match was special for Dennis Thiessen, who finished his career capturing bronze as Canada White defeated Italy 5-4. Canada Red, skipped by London's own Mark Ideson, stole away to a 7-2 victory over Great Britain for gold. As Canada Red gathered to celebrate, fans in the stands serenaded them by singing "O Canada."
Wheelchair curling teams don't get much, if any, time on arena ice in front of large crowds before the Paralympics, and this inaugural event will surely help as they prepare for Milan-Cortina.
EXTRA END: No, this isn’t a shootout but a look at what’s coming up.
The top Canadian teams are already heading to Calgary for the PointsBet Invitational, which begins Wednesday at the WinSport Event Centre. Team McEwen and Team Homan return as the defending champions, although the format this year isn’t a 16-team single-elimination bracket but a round-robin, with the 10-team men’s and women’s fields split up into two pools of five.
After Thanksgiving weekend, the Grand Slam of Curling returns for its second event of the season, the CO-OP Tour Challenge, Oct. 14-19 at the Silent Ice Center in Nisku, Alta. Full-event and weekend passes, plus single draw tickets, are now available. Visit GSOCtickets.com to purchase yours today. Expect an announcement of the teams and a match schedule to be announced in the next few days.
The CO-OP Tour Challenge also features U25 and U15 tournaments taking place at the Beaumont Curling Club in Beaumont, Alta. The finals for those events will join the top teams at the Silent Ice Center for Championship Sunday.
