Rachel Homan’s group will have tricked some other folks with their social media put up previous this week asking fans to bet who their new lead goes to be for subsequent season.
With Joanne Courtney making plans to step again from aggressive curling on the finish of the 2021-22 marketing campaign, all of the Ottawa-based group did was once take its annual group image and photoshop a Tremendous Mario Bros. taste query field over Courtney’s face.
That didn’t forestall some fanatics from seeking to bet who was once below the field.
“I believe some other folks idea that was once a real image of the individual,” Workforce Homan’s Emma Miskew stated with fun. “No, that’s Jo.”
Because it seems, it now not handiest wasn’t the most recent group member within the photograph, the individual isn’t even a lead.
Workforce Homan made a blockbuster announcement Friday that Tracy Fleury, who skips the No. 2 ranked group on the planet, will sign up for Homan, Miskew and Sarah Wilkes subsequent season.
Miskew instructed sportsnet.ca they’re now not 100 in line with cent positive what the brand new lineup goes to seem like precisely, however they’ll be beginning with Homan and Fleury taking part in back-end roles of skip and 3rd whilst herself and Wilkes will care for the front-end positions of 2d and lead.
“It’s a large trade however it’s an exhilarating one,” Miskew stated. “We’re all taking a look ahead to a brand new problem, new objectives, a brand new lineup and a brand new participant. We’re truly going to omit Jo, however that is nice to have Tracy come on board. We had been truly glad after we were given the message pronouncing she was once in.”
When Homan, Miskew and Wilkes began looking for a brand new participant, it wasn’t with regards to discovering somebody who may just play lead however somebody who will be the best possible conceivable have compatibility for his or her lineup.
“We don’t have any egos there about having to play a definite place,” stated Miskew, who has performed with Homan since they had been youngsters and feature gained a document 11 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling girls’s titles in combination. “That opened the door not to simply search for somebody who’s been taking part in lead but additionally searching for any person who suits that mindset the place: ‘No matter place is best possible for the group is anyplace I’ll play.’”
Fleury, who’s from Sudbury, Ont., and her Manitoba-based group introduced previous this month they’ll be disbanding. 3rd Selena Njegovan and lead Kristin MacCuish have related up with Kaitlyn Lawes and Jocelyn Peterman from Jennifer Jones’s squad to shape the brand new Workforce Lawes for subsequent season.
As soon as Workforce Homan discovered Fleury was once to be had, they knew they needed to no less than succeed in out to peer if she’d have an interest.
“We had been seeking to brainstorm about who will be the proper have compatibility for us, what place we had been taking a look to fill and I believe after we noticed the chance to play with Tracy, we needed to bounce on it,” Miskew stated. “She’s an excellent participant and brings a large number of ability. She is aware of the sport truly smartly and she or he additionally turns out like a really perfect teammate in the market. We’ve been taking part in towards her for years and lets see that.”
Workforce Homan kind of were given a jump-start at the lineup carousel when Miskew skipped the squad as Wild Card 3 to a 4-4 document remaining month on the Scotties Event of Hearts. Homan was once away competing for Canada in combined doubles with John Morris on the Wintry weather Olympic Video games in Beijing. The pair got here on the subject of qualifying for the playoffs having tied Sweden in fourth position with a 5-4 document, however they neglected out at the medal around in response to their head-to-head end. If that wasn’t soul-crushing sufficient, Homan’s remaining shot in their round-robin finale towards Italy rolled lower than an inch too deep to surrender a thieve and lose 8-7 in an additional finish.
Again at the different facet of the arena on house soil, the remainder of Workforce Homan had been doing their best possible supporting their skip.
“I didn’t get a lot sleep that reach. Once we had been not taking part in within the Scotties, I used to be up gazing just about all of her video games in the midst of the evening,” Miskew stated. “It was once so shut, heartbreaking to the way it ended, however … she’s so gifted and made such a lot of photographs. Blended doubles is truly exhausting, I believe she did a truly nice task representing Canada. It was once tremendous thrilling to look at and we had been cheering tremendous exhausting. Even whilst we had been nonetheless taking part in, we might replay the video games on the Scotties if lets in order that lets watch after our video games had been performed.
“I understand how a lot paintings each her and John installed to arrange for that tournament towards all odds with the whole thing that came about main into it. All of the different nations had an excessively other preparation getting in however with the combined doubles trials being cancelled they had been simply thrown into it very all at once and I assumed they carried out really well.”
Workforce Homan have 3 tournaments ultimate at the time table with the Ontario Scotties provincial championship adopted by means of two Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling occasions: the Princess Auto Gamers’ Championship (April 12-17 at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre) and the KIOTI Tractor Champions Cup (Would possibly 3-8 on the Olds Sportsplex in Olds, Alta.)
Miskew stated it’s going to be tricky however they’re truly glad they get to play a couple of extra occasions with Courtney earlier than she calls it a occupation, finishing an excellent run successful Canadian and international championships in 2017, representing Canada on the 2018 Wintry weather Olympic Video games and taking pictures 8 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling girls’s titles in combination.
“She’s been an excellent good friend of mine and a teammate for a very long time, so I’m truly going to omit her,” Miskew stated. “I’m taking a look ahead to taking part in those remaining couple of occasions together with her. We’ll play the most efficient that we will be able to to finish her curling (occupation) in an effective way so she has a just right end.”
