Rachel Homan
Rachel Catherine Homan is a Canadian international curler and the reigning women's world champion. Homan is a former Canadian junior champion, a five-time Canadian national champion, and three-time World Champion, all as a skip. She was also the skip of the Canadian women's curling team at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and will skip the team at the February 2026 Winter Olympics.
During her junior career, Homan competed in two Canadian Junior Curling Championships, placing second in 2009 and winning the championship in 2010. She also won a silver medal at the 2010 World Junior Curling Championships. Throughout her women's career, Homan has medalled at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian women's national curling championships, nine times, winning gold five times, silver three times, and bronze once. She has competed in five World Women's Curling Championships, winning gold three times, silver in 2014, and bronze in 2013. She has also competed in three Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, finishing in third place in 2013, winning in 2017, finishing last in 2021, and winning again in 2025. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, her team finished in sixth place. In 2019, Homan was named the fourth-greatest Canadian female curler in history by The Sports Network.
Career
Bantam and junior (2003–2010)
Homan began curling at the age of five, playing in the Little Rock program at the Rideau Curling Club in Ottawa. While bantam-aged, she won four straight provincial championships from 2003 to 2006, while no other curler had won even twice. In 2006, she won the Optimist International Under-18 Curling Tournament, beating Casey Scheidegger in the final. Her team qualified for the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon, where Homan skipped Team Ontario to a gold medal.During her first two years at the junior level, Homan did not win a provincial championship. In 2007, her team lost the provincial semifinal to Hollie Nicol's rink. In 2008, her team lost in the final to Danielle Inglis. These losses were allayed by a provincial junior championship in 2009, earning her team a berth at the 2009 Canadian Junior Curling Championships. At the Canadian Juniors, she skipped the Ontario team to a 10–2 record after the round robin, giving her rink a bye to the final, where she lost to the defending champion, Kaitlyn Lawes from Manitoba. Homan won the 2010 provincial championship and represented Ontario at the 2010 Canadian Junior Curling Championships. At the 2010 Canadian Junior Curling Championships, Homan, with Emma Miskew, Laura Crocker, and Lynn Kreviazuk, won the junior national title with an undefeated record of 13 wins and 0 losses – only the fourth women's team to do so. The team represented Canada at the 2010 World Junior Curling Championships in Flims, Switzerland. The team lost just one round robin game and lost in the final to Sweden's team, skipped by Anna Hasselborg.
Prior to graduating from juniors in 2010, Homan's junior team was too young to participate in Scotties Tournament of Hearts playdowns, but this did not stop her from participating in Women's World Curling Tour events. Homan's top accomplishments on the tour while she was junior-aged included winning two straight Southwestern Ontario Women's Charity Cashspiels. In 2007, she defeated then-World Champion Jennifer Jones in the semifinal and Ève Bélisle in the final, and in 2008 she won in the final against the Chinese national team, skipped by Wang Bingyu. Her team earned $11,000 for each win. In 2009, she won the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic, winning $5,500 for her team. Later that year, her team participated in the Canadian Olympic Curling Pre-Trials, where her team finished with a 3–3 record, and therefore did not qualify for the "Roar of the Rings", Canada's Olympic Trials.
In 2009, Homan's rink was named the World Curling Tour's "rookie team of the year."
Early women's (2010–2012)
In her first year of eligibility, Homan qualified for and won the 2011 Ontario Scotties Tournament of Hearts. At the 2011 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Homan skipped the Ontario team, finishing the round robin in third place and beating Nova Scotia's Heather Smith-Dacey in the 3 vs. 4 game, before losing in the semi-final to Saskatchewan's Amber Holland, thus eliminating her from the final. She then lost in the bronze medal game to Smith-Dacey.In April 2011, Homan played third for her brother Mark, and won the 2012 Ontario Mixed Championship. The team, which also included Brian Fleischhaker and teammate in women's play Alison Kreviazuk, represented Ontario at the 2012 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship in November 2011. The team finished with an 8–5 record and out of the playoffs.
That same month, Homan's women's team made it to her first career Grand Slam final, when she lost to Jennifer Jones in the final of the 2011 Players' Championship. Later in 2011, she played in her first Canada Cup where her team finished with a 2–4 record.
Homan once again qualified for the provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2012. Her team went undefeated throughout the round robin. However, they lost in the final to Tracy Horgan's rink from Sudbury. Homan, who was up by one point with the hammer, missed a draw to the button to clinch the victory on her final rock. Instead, she gave up three points and lost.
Scotties champions and world bronze medallists (2012–13)
In her first Grand Slam event of the 2012–13 curling season, the 2012 Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Curling Classic, Homan's team lost to Sherry Middaugh in the final. In the second Grand Slam event of the season, the 2012 Manitoba Lotteries Women's Curling Classic, Homan's rink once again lost in the final, this time to Stefanie Lawton. Homan lost in the semi-final of the third Slam of the season, the 2012 Colonial Square Ladies Classic, but followed it up with her first-ever Grand Slam victory at the 2012 Masters of Curling, where she beat Chelsea Carey in the final. Outside of the Grand Slams, Homan won her 2nd Royal LePage OVCA Women's Fall Classic in 2012.Later in the season, Homan qualified for her second Scotties Tournament of Hearts by going undefeated at the 2013 Ontario Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Homan began the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kingston, Ontario, by winning the Ford Hot Shots skills competition. At the Scotties, the team lost just one game in the round robin, to Manitoba's Jennifer Jones. This gave the rink a 10–1 record, second behind Manitoba, who went undefeated. However, in their first playoff game, the Homan rink defeated Jones 8–5. This put the Homan team in the final, where they faced Jones once again, and won 9–6. With the victory, the Homan rink became the first Ottawa-based team to win the Canadian women's curling championship. The win earned Homan and her team the right to represent Canada at the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship in Riga, Latvia.
At the World championships, the Homan rink led Canada to an 8–3 round robin finish, which put them in third place. In the playoffs, they beat the United States in the 3 vs. 4 game, then lost to Scotland in the semi-final, after Homan missed her last shot of the game, jamming a double takeout. After the loss, Homan defeated the Americans again, this time in the bronze medal game. The Homan rink finished the season by losing in the quarter-final of the 2013 Players' Championship.
Scotties repeat champions and world silver medallists (2013–14)
Starting the 2013–14 curling season, Homan's team played in four events on the World Curling Tour before winning the 2013 Masters, beating Eve Muirhead in the final. They had previously beaten Homan in the semi-finals of the 2013 Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Curling Classic. Homan's team had made the playoffs in every Grand Slam event in the previous season; however, they failed to make the playoffs at the 2013 Colonial Square Ladies Classic.Homan's success over the previous three seasons qualified her team for an automatic entry at the 2013 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials. There, the team qualified for playoffs with a 4–3 round robin record, in second place. They lost to Sherry Middaugh in the semi-final, ending the team's 2014 Olympic hopes.
As defending Scotties champions from 2013, the Homan rink represented Team Canada at the 2014 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Montreal. The event was notable for the absence of Jennifer Jones, who was competing at the Olympics. The Homan team went through the entire tournament undefeated without ever having to throw their last rock and defeated Alberta's Val Sweeting in the final. Homan became the youngest skip ever to win back-to-back Scotties. Homan was awarded the Sandra Schmirler Most Valuable Player Award, and ended the event with a 90% shooting percentage based on overall shot successes throughout the event, the highest of any skip in the tournament.
Homan's 2014 Scotties win earned her team a berth at the 2014 World Women's Curling Championship in Saint John, New Brunswick. The team had a better event than the previous year, as they only lost one round robin game to finish first place heading into the playoffs. The team defeated Switzerland's Binia Feltscher in the 1 vs. 2 page playoff game, but lost in a rematch in the final. Homan and her Canadian team thus settled for a silver medal.
The Homan rink ended the season with a loss in the final of the 2014 Players' Championship against the Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones. The match marked the last game on the team for second Alison Kreviazuk, as she moved to Sweden to be with her boyfriend Fredrik Lindberg, who played for Niklas Edin. Kreviazuk, who had played for Homan since they were bantam-aged, was replaced by Joanne Courtney from Edmonton.