The Canadian team’s numbers speak for themselves at the world women’s curling championship this week.
A perfect 11-0 round-robin record. An overall shooting percentage of 88.2 per cent. An impressive 91 points scored to just 47 against.
Skip Rachel Homan, third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes ran the table at the national championship and they’re three wins away from doing it again at Centre 200.
Canada secured the top seed Friday afternoon with an efficient 8-2 win over Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison. The result locked up a semi-final berth for the Ottawa-based side and ensured they’ll be playing for a medal on Sunday.
As the first seed, Canada will open playoff games with hammer and have choice of stone colour.
Canada has been tested at times throughout the week. Homan opened with a 7-6 win over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg and needed an extra end for an 8-7 win over Italy’s Stefania Constantini a few days later.
A plucky Turkish side was also a handful, forcing Homan to make a pair of tricky soft-weight raises in the 10th end for a 9-5 win that was closer than the score might suggest.
Homan was to put her 27-game overall win streak on the line Friday night in a playoff tune-up against South Korea’s Eunji Gim.
Defending champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland beat Sweden 4-2 to secure the other direct semi-final berth as the second seed at 10-2. South Korea and Italy were tied in third place at 9-2 ahead of Sweden (7-5) and Denmark (6-6).
Winners of the qualification games Saturday will advance to the semi-finals later in the day. Medal games are set for Sunday.