Rachel Homan has been to the Olympics, but the closest she got to the curling action at Vancouver in 2010 was watching from the stands with Emma Miskew.
Homan was 20, Miskew a matter of days past 21. They were mere weeks past winning a Canadian junior title.
Neither was yet a national women’s curling champion or world bronze medallist or, with Alison Kreviazuk and Lisa Weagle, counted among leading contenders for next week’s Canadian Olympic team trials in Winnipeg.
Homan, Miskew, Kreviazuk and Weagle start the seven-game round robin against Val Sweeting’s Edmonton foursome on Sunday. By the time the last rock is swept in the women’s final on Dec. 7 and the men’s final a day later, Canada will have its representatives for the Sochi Olympics in February.
“I see that as kind of an ultimate goal that I want to achieve in my life,” Homan says. “It’s the ultimate stage that you can get on as an athlete. That’s our goal and we are pushing to achieve that. We are kind of putting everything else on hold.”
Work hours were reduced as the Ottawa Curling Club members devoted even more time to practice and training and altered their competitive schedule to bypass a World Curling Tour event at Winnipeg because it was back to back with another in Abbotsford, B.C. — they won there — and adding a mid-November bonspiel at Saskatoon.
That one didn’t go well, as Homan and Co. lost three of four games. Two of the defeats were against teams skipped by Sweeting and Winnipeg’s Chelsea Carey, also in the eight-team Olympic trials field.
Given the Ottawa team’s resumé, those comparatively poor results could be considered surprising, but they might also be viewed as a learning opportunity and a reminder to take nothing for granted.
“We want to make sure, when the weekend is over, that we did everything we could and we gave it everything for trials,” says Homan, the team’s skip.
Homan’s team was undefeated in winning the 2013 Ontario women’s championship at Kitchener-Waterloo and lost once in claiming its first national title in Kingston. They started slowly in the world championship in Riga, Latvia, winning just two of the first five, but got rolling and reached the semifinal.
Losing that contest to the eventual champions skipped by Scotland’s Eve Muirhead stung. With victory in her hands, Homan’s attempted double-takeout with her final stone was off-target by fractions of an inch and Scotland stole the winning point.
Somehow the Canadians regrouped the next morning, defeating Debbie McCormick’s U.S. team for bronze.
“As hard as it is have the lows (like that semifinal defeat), I think it’s so important to have those in my game,” Homan says. “I learned so much about my game from them.
“If we didn’t have that experience, I think we would still be where we were last year.”
Earle Morris, coach of the Homan foursome, says preparation for Olympic trials began in late 2012, when he and Homan had lunch with his son, John, a two-time world junior champion skip, 2010 gold medallist at third for Kevin Martin’s Edmonton rink and now skipping a B.C. team that will also be in Winnipeg.
The Olympics weren’t part of the conversation, but high-performance training, game management and even leadership and its importance in curling were.
“Rachel is the best shotmaking skip in curling, and she has been a work in progress in strategy and leadership because of her young age,” the elder Morris says. “The nuances of the game take a long time to learn.
“She has just blossomed so well as a leader and as a strategist. That has been a process that took all of last year and part of this year, but since then she has arrived. She has it all ready to go, and her teammates are looking forward to going on the journey with her.”
One perk for Scotties winners is the right to return as Team Canada defending champions after skipping regional and provincial playdowns. However, the Olympics and 2014 Scotties conflict, so Homan, Miskew, Kreviazuk and Weagle will be in either Sochi or Montreal, not both.
They’d take Sochi in a heartbeat. Homan says earning the right to go to the Olympics seems more attainable than even just a few years ago. With the 28-year-old Weagle the oldest among them, it’s easy to believe there will be other opportunities, but Homan says there’s no holding back this time.
“I don’t want to get caught up in past success,” she says. “We are really proud of what we did (last season). It’s great to have the experience, and we have learned a lot from going overseas and representing our country. It’s very definitely over now, and you have to keep moving forward and pushing yourself and pushing your team.”