Members of “Team Homan” share a laugh with coach Earle Morris. The team is representing Ontario at the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kingston.
Earle Morris had already mapped out a storybook ending to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts before it even started.
“I hope that we get to the final, I hope that it’s all tied up coming home, I hope that the last rock is made, and I hope we have the hammer,” says Morris.
Before they leave for the Scotties though, Team Homan practices at the Ottawa Curling Club on O’Connor Street. Between a couple laughs, the team is focused. It spends almost an hour doing one drill working on throwing consistencies, co-ordinated by coach Morris. Finally, it’s over; another hard day’s work.
“I’ve never worked with a team that’s worked harder than this team,” says Morris of the 2013 Ontario provincial champions.
Thanks to that hard work, Team Homan earned the right to represent Ontario in the 2013 national championship in Kingston this week. It won the Ontario provincial championship in Waterloo, Jan. 21-27, going 11-0 in the process.
The Ottawa-based team is led by Rachel Homan, who at only 23 years of age is already one of the best in the game, according to her coach.
“To me, Rachel has always been the best shot-making skip in curling,” says Morris. “If you take a look at the successful skips in curling, they’re all in their thirties, those that have won world championships. Well, here’s a young lady that’s only 23.”
Also 23 years old are teammates Alison Kreviazuk and Emma Miskew. Lisa Weagle, the fourth member of the squad, is the veteran at age 27. All four team members grew up in Ottawa.
Homan, Kreviazuk, and Miskew have been curling together since they were 12 years old, all the while coached by Morris. The exception being the last two seasons when Morris coached Olympian Jennifer Jones for a year, then took a year away from curling. He returned to the rink this season after being asked by his old team.
“We got on our hands and knees,” admits Kreviazuk. Weagle joined the team three years ago.
Team Homan returns to the national championships after finishing fourth in 2011 in Charlottetown. This time, it gets to be the host team.
“Being the home province, getting crowd advantage – it’s going to be really neat,” says Kreviazuk. “I’m looking forward to it a lot.”
Team Homan has been the most financially successful team in the world during the 2012-13 season, having earned $52,300 over six tournaments – or slams, as they are called in curling. Morris likes their chances going into the Scotties and he’s not alone.
“If you listen to what the media says, we’re co-favourites,” says Morris. “I think that makes a lot of sense based on the success we’ve had this year. We’re the leading money winner on the World Curling Tour and we’ve got a great record against the other top ten teams.”
One of the team's long-term goals is to represent Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
But in the short term, it would like to represent Canada at the World Championships in Riga, Latvia, March 16-24, which will happen if it wins in Kingston.
“Ever since I started curling it’s been a dream of mine to wear the maple leaf,” says Kreviazuk. “I think it would be really exciting to win.”
In the immediate future, the team only has one goal: making the playoffs at the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
And while Kreviazuk, Homan, and Weagle all agree that their goal is to make the tournament playoffs, they acknowledge that there is more to it than winning this time around.
“I think we also really want to enjoy the experience,” says Weagle. “Being able to play at a national championship is really exciting and we’re going to have lots of fan support there so I think we just want to take it all in and enjoy it but also stay focused on our goals.”
Of course, a gold medal wouldn’t hurt either.
“We have so much support and friends and family coming to cheer us on and it would just be amazing to kind of share that win with them,” says Homan. “It would just be kind of surreal at first. I’m just excited to get to Scotties and start the event.”