By Jonathan Brazeau
It comes down to this: the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials will determine which men’s and women’s teams will wear the Maple Leaf at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina.
Before the event begins Saturday at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre, here’s what you need to know in Eight Ends.
FIRST END: Unlike other countries that select their Olympic teams, Canada puts its teams through the gauntlet. Both men’s and women’s divisions feature an eight-team round-robin preliminary stage. The top team at the end of the week gets a bye to the final, with the teams finishing in second and third facing off in a semifinal match.
New for this year’s Olympic trials, and something we saw at the pre-trials, is that the final is now a best-of-three instead of a single game.
SECOND END: The women’s division begins and ends with Team Rachel Homan. The Ottawa-based club has absolutely dominated not just the Canadian scene but the world stage as well.
Homan swept through the past two Scotties Tournament of Hearts and became the first Canadian team to win back-to-back gold medals in the World Women's Curling Championship since Sandra Schmirler's squad in 1993-94.
The world No. 1 Homan hasn’t let up this fall, winning all three Grand Slam of Curling tournaments.
You could make the case that Homan should have just been outright selected for the Winter Olympics, but we’ll save that argument for another day. For now, Homan could very well run the table here, having gone a full year since her most recent loss to another Canadian team, with a 30-game undefeated streak. Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Homan holds an 80-2 record against Canadian teams.
The best-of-three final also works in Homan's favour as it lessens the impact that one bad end or one picked rock can cause an upset.
“I think win or lose here, we were happy with being in the final and playing some come-from-behind wins and sticking together as a team, whether we were leading or whether we were behind,” Homan said after winning her 20th Grand Slam title earlier this month at the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe. “We got what we needed out of this week and just dial it in for trials.”
THIRD END: Nothing in sports is ever guaranteed, that’s why we play the game after all, so if not Homan, then who else could win on the women’s side?
Kerri Einarson’s team is the only Canadian club that has defeated Homan (twice) since the start of the 2023-24 season. Einarson topped Homan during pool play in the 2023 Tour Challenge and in the final of the 2024 Tour Challenge. Still, Homan has won their past six head-to-head matchups.
The Gimli, Man., team, No. 9 in the world rankings, has struggled on the Slam circuit this fall, missing the playoffs twice, but reached the quarterfinals at the CO-OP Tour Challenge, losing to (who else but) Homan.
Einarson won four straight Scotties titles from 2020-23 and will need to recapture the spark.
FOURTH END: If you’re looking for a long shot surprise, take a chance on Halifax’s own Team Christina Black.
Stranger things have happened at the trials, and at the trials in Halifax 20 years ago no less. Black, who finished third at the Scotties last year, can hang with the best. Add in the hometown crowd, and it could be a magical week.
FIFTH END: Depth has always been one of Canada’s strongest suits, and the men’s division is stacked with a handful of worthy contenders.
Leading the pack is Team Matt Dunstone. Ever since E.J. Harnden joined the front end last year, reuniting with his brother Ryan Harnden, things have clicked into place for the Winnipeg-based club. The Brush Bros. have the needed experience, highlighted by an Olympic gold in 2014, while Dunstone has reached his prime as a skip and has the hot hand heading into the trials.
The knock against Dunstone is that he hasn’t represented Canada in a major international tournament since the World Juniors almost a decade ago. The way Dunstone has played this fall, reaching three consecutive Grand Slam finals with a title victory at the AMJ Masters, that shouldn’t be an issue for the world No. 2 team.
Besides, we’ll cross that bridge if/when we get there. At the moment, Dunstone could win it all at the trials, with a 10-3 record against the field this season, including a 3-0 record against the team that’s next on our list.
SIXTH END: Team Brad Jacobs entered the season as the reigning Brier champion, looking like the favourite to win another Canadian competition.
There’s no questioning the Calgary-based club’s credentials, as all four members of the team have competed and medalled at the Winter Olympics. Jacobs skipped Canada to gold in 2014, while Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert captured gold with skip Kevin Martin in 2010. Brett Gallant, who is already Cortina-bound for mixed doubles, earned bronze with skip Brad Gushue in 2022. (Kennedy was the alternate in 2022 and also added a bronze to his haul.)
As we alluded to, Dunstone has Jacobs’s number this fall, though. Since Jacobs defeated Dunstone in last season’s Brier final, the tables have turned. Jacobs has appeared in two Grand Slam events this fall, losing in the semifinals both times to Dunstone. The team also lost to Dunstone in the final of the PointsBet Invitational.
The world No. 3 Jacobs has worn the Maple Leaf once already this season, winning gold at the Pan Continental Curling Championships. Can the team do it again?
“It would be amazing,” Kennedy said earlier this month during the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe. “Obviously, I’ve had lots of opportunities to do it in my career, which is great, but would love another opportunity. There's nothing better than wearing the Maple Leaf. We've got to experience it with this group a couple times, so I know as a group we would just love to get back there, but there's a lot of shots and a lot of breaks that have to happen in the meantime, so we'll give it our best.
“I remember what Kevin Martin used to say about trying to get back to the Olympics is it's just so much fun when you're there. It would be great to get back and experience another fun one, but we'll see.”
SEVENTH END: No chance. That’s what Brad Gushue was told when he competed in the Olympic trials 20 years ago in Halifax as the underdog among the likes of Kevin Martin, Randy Ferbey and Jeff Stoughton. Gushue’s crew not only won the trials, but they went on to become the first Canadian men’s team to win gold since curling returned to the Olympic program as a full medal sport in 1998.
Since then, Gushue has also won bronze at the Olympics, six Brier titles, 15 Grand Slams, plus one gold and four silver medals at the World Men’s Curling Championship. There’s no doubt he’s one of the greatest curlers of all time. While Gushue is set to retire from competitive curling after this season, the book isn’t closed on his career just yet.
The St. John's, N.L., club snapped a Slam slump during last month’s CO-OP Tour Challenge, qualifying for the playoffs after missing the cut in the previous three events in the series. The team then reached the quarterfinals at the Swiss Cup Basel before focusing on the trials.
Gushue, No. 19 in the world rankings, will need to rise to the occasion, as he has done so many times in the past in other big moments.
EIGHTH END: Although it is a four-year journey to the Winter Olympics, it does still come down to playing great during this one week.
John Epping has gone through hot streaks before, winning three Grand Slam titles as a skip, and has gone through a career resurgence playing with Jacob Horgan, Tanner Horgan and Ian McMillan. Epping enters as the third-ranked team in Canada and sixth in the world.
Mike McEwen has also hit his curling renaissance with Colton Flasch, Kevin Marsh and Dan Marsh. While McEwen took things easy to start this season after recovering knee surgery, things should be ramping up now for the Saskatoon-based squad.
Don’t count out Jordon McDonald either. The young Winnipeg team had a good run at the PointsBet Invitational and only missed the final on the last stone draw challenge. McDonald might not be a favourite to win, but he could certainly factor in someone else losing by playing the spoiler.
