‘They are the best team’

HALIFAX — Four years ago Tracy Fleury suffered one of the most devastating losses in Canadian curling history.

Playing out of Manitoba at the time and boasting the top-ranked team, Fleury’s final stone rubbed on a guard to allow Jennifer Jones to steal a 6-5 extra-end victory to represent the country at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The loss has hung over Fleury ever since, but on Saturday afternoon in Halifax, the weight was finally lifted. Fleury and Team Rachel Homan steamrolled Halifax’s Christina Black 12-3 to sweep the 2025 Canadian Curling Trials best-of-three final.

Fleury, who now plays third, fought back tears as she stood beside Homan, second Emma Miskew, and lead Sarah Wilkes in their newly minted Canada jackets and gold medals while the national anthem was sung.

“Sometimes you have to have some of those hard moments to bounce back and get better,” said Fleury, a 39-year-old from Sudbury, Ont., who played with Winnipeggers Selena Njegovan, Liz Fyfe, and Kristin Gordon in 2021.

“You think back to four years ago and we were close, so some of those feelings come back. And then you’re just really proud of all the work our team has put in. We’ve worked so hard for four years and then it just kind of builds to that moment where all that hard work pays off so it’s an incredible feeling.”

Fleury joined Homan’s Ottawa-based rink in 2022. In this quad, they have cemented themselves as arguably the most dominant team ever assembled.

“She’s so deserving. She’s so hard working and just an amazing athlete,” said Homan. “That was tough to watch four years ago. We were up in the stands, and it was heartbreaking. I told her ‘We’ve been there, too. You’re not the only one with heartbreak in this sport. There’s lots of it.’”

Canada couldn’t ask for a better foursome to rep red and white at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Homan owns an astounding 179-20 record, two Scotties titles, two world crowns, and seven grand slams in the past three years.

All their success meant they weren’t just the favourites this week — they were expected to win. Homan went 6-1 in the round robin to earn a bye to the final. They beat Black 5-4 in Game 1 on Friday.

“It was tough coming in with a target a little bit on our backs, just given how we’ve been playing the last couple years. And sometimes that can cause teams to rise to the occasion when they play against you and everyone here is so talented, so if you get everyone’s best game, it could go either way,” said Miskew.

“We had a lot of close games, so, we just really wanted to make sure we were sticking with our process and not getting ahead of ourselves too much… We just found ways to win, and I think that’s kind of our style right now — we just find ways to win games that could go either way.”

This will be Homan’s third trip to the Olympics. Alongside Miskew, she appeared at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang and placed sixth. She was also selected to play mixed doubles with John Morris at 2022 Beijing where they settled for a fifth-place finish.

The only accolade left for Homan to check off is an Olympic medal. Ranked No. 1 in the world, anything less than gold would be viewed as a letdown.

“We couldn’t be happier. There are not words to describe putting that maple leaf on your back at the Olympics,” said Homan.

“With these three girls and our support team… we feel like we can take on the world with confidence. It’s going to be an uphill battle there, just like it was this week, and we’re going to be prepared for it.”

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Black was the biggest surprise of the week but ran out of steam at the end. Homan scored four in the third end and was in control the rest of the way.

The sold-out crowd inside the Scotiabank Centre gave Black a standing ovation before she threw her last rock.

“We couldn’t pull it off, but that’s OK. We wanted to be able to look back on this week and be happy with how we played and have the best memories for the rest of our lives because this was such a unique opportunity to play here in front of a home crowd,” said Black.

“We love Team Homan… Obviously, I’m playing, I want to win, but they are the best team we can send to the Olympics. We are so excited to cheer them on and know they can bring home gold for Canada.”

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Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

Every piece of reporting Taylor produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.