Canada’s Olympic Trials Deliver Quadrennial Curling Calamities

Can you remember four years ago?

The 2021 Canadian (Olympic) Curling Trials took place in Saskatoon, Sask. Fans were indeed in the building; seven months earlier the world men’s championship had concluded the run of COVID-wracked “bubble” bonspiels held at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.

The men’s side went according to the prognosticators, with three of the four favourites reaching the playoffs and a battle of Brads taking place in the final game.

One surprise was Brendan Bottcher’s team. Following a close first draw loss to Gushue, the defending Brier champions were upset in their second game by the (eventual) last place squad skipped by northern Ontario’s Tanner Horgan. Jacobs swiftly dispatched them on Monday afternoon and Bottcher never recovered from an 0-3 start.

The women’s competition provided fans a demonstration of Canada’s usual quadrennial curling calamities. A defeat of Kerri Einarson by Kelsey Rocque resulted in a three-way tie of teams at 4-4. Laura Walker could have joined the party but fell to Jacqueline Harrison 10-9 in a game which featured a four (by Walker) countered by a five (Harrison).

There was a bizarre battle between Einarson and eventual winner Jennifer Jones on the Tuesday night. Over half the points (10) were stolen in four of the ends, the last a key steal of three in the eighth – by Jones – to tie a game in which she trailed 8-3 at the break.

Jen’s Tuesday night thriller turned out to be just an appetizer for the main course served on championship Sunday. Jones missed a winning shot in the 10th end, only to steal in the extra frame against previously unbeaten Tracey Fleury.

And this after Einarson had won a first tiebreaker but missed a shot for the win in the second tiebreaker – she could only watch in horror, then wait for the extra end, won by Krista McCarville.

However, the most astonishing outcome may have been the debacle by Ottawa’s Team Homan. Rachel was 130-51 against the field coming in to the Trials and (per my calculation) was expected to win six games. Instead, she lost six and finished dead last in the standings.

That summer Rachel recruited northern Ontario’s Fleury, initially to skip and throw third stones. After Rachel moved back to calling the game, the squad clicked and sped towards a dominant run with back-to-back world titles in the last two seasons.

Using data and odds from Coolbet.com, the eye test, and firing darts towards a board, I’ve attempted to place this year’s Trials teams (Halifax, Nov. 22-30) into four groups: Favourites, Contenders, Challengers, and Underdogs.

Given the many lineup changes over the past four years, and realization this event is inherently unpredictable, I’ve tossed out any data before the 2022-23 season. This analysis uses head-to-head wins and losses, scoring, and winning percentages between the competing teams.

For example, the recent women’s Grand Slam final in Lake Tahoe between Homan and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni is not included in our calculations. Bill James’ log5 method and his Pythagorean expectation are used to estimate the expected round robin wins of each team.

Favourites

Team Rachel Homan (-1250) is the “Highlander” favourite for this Canadian Olympic Trials, ergo, “there can be only one.”

The historic run of winning five of the last six Grand Slams and repeat world championships the past two seasons will not satisfy this squad. Tracey will want to erase the memory from 2021; her final stone wrecking on a centre guard, giving Jennifer Jones the trip to Beijing. Sarah Wilkes wants to remedy the 2-6 result from Saskatoon. Rachel and Emma Miskew have unfinished business eight years after their medal-less Olympic appearance at PyeongChang 2018 – and Homan also missed the mixed doubles medal podium with John Morris in Beijing.

Team Homan’s numbers and data against this field are simply absurd. The foursome is 42-6 and if you remove Einarson, they are 29-2 against the rest of the field since the 2022-23 season.

Christina Black of Halifax beat Rachel in the 2023 Scotties with a surprising come from behind victory, taking two in 10 and stealing the extra end. Black has lost five straight against her since then, scoring only 19 points to Homan’s 32 and only once reaching the final end.

Kaitlyn Lawes’ lone win against Homan goes back to October 8, 2022. Since then, the Winnipeg skip has lost eight in a row and scored 33 points to Rachel’s 57. Of note, these two losses and two of Einarson’s wins were with Tracey Fleury calling the game.

To summarize, Team Homan, in its current lineup with Rachel in the house, has lost two games against the Trials field in four years – both to Einarson – and is undefeated against everyone else. It’s possible only the Harlem Globetrotters have a better winning percentage. Homan’s points per game (PF/G) leads the field at 7 and points against (PA/G) is 4.2, a full point lower than Einarson (5.3).

Looking at the data and inertia of this team, while factoring the new (and improved?) best-of-three championship final format, makes it seem like only a Tonya Harding scenario could produce a different champion.