By Dan Plouffe
The Rachel Homan Ottawa Curling Club rink once again showed that they are better than all the rest as they recorded several first-time feats en route to their fifth career Scotties Tournament of Hearts title on Sunday in Thunder Bay.
Having already earned the distinction of becoming the first team to go undefeated through the full tournament when they won the national women’s curling title last year, Team Homan again repeated that perfect record to extend their winning streak at the Scotties to 22 straight games.
And for the first time in championship game history, skip Homan curled a perfect 100% on both hits and draws en route to a 6-1 victory over Kerri Einarson.
“We needed the 100% to beat them. They were lights-out,” Homan said in a post-match media scrum shared by Curling Canada.
Curling can often resemble a chess match, and that was especially true of the Scotties final, with just three points scored in total through six ends. Homan was up 2-1 at that juncture, while Einarson had the hammer.
What is not always captured in the statistics for made or missed shots is the level of precision. In the biggest moments of the championship match, Homan was perfect.
Setup well by her teammates, Homan nailed her final shots in the seventh and eighth ends. She stole one in the seventh when Einarson was heavy on her difficult draw attempt, and the Manitoba skip was light in the eighth to give up two more.
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“Those shots were huge. And, I mean, they were team shots. I didn’t make them all on my own,” Homan recounted. “Championship days, they’re always tough, they’re always nerve-wracking. We felt the nerves, but we stuck together.
“You know, we had some misses early, but we just kept learning and kept sticking together and we made the next one. We made big shots when we needed to.
“I’m just unbelievably proud of my team. We never wavered.”
After giving up another steal in the ninth, Einarson shook hands with Homan to concede and award the 35-year-old from Orleans her sixth Canadian women’s title (one came at the junior level in 2010).
Ottawa’s Emma Miskew has been a part of each of those triumphs, while Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes celebrated repeat Canadian crowns with Team Homan, which had Jennifer Jones on board for her first win as coach. Team Homan moved within one of Jones’s record six Scotties championships, held jointly with Colleen Jones.
“To say we’re five-time Scotties champions is pretty cool,” Miskew highlighted. “I’m so grateful that Rach and I found each other at a young age and were able to battle through all this, all these years together, and go all through the hard years and those hard losses, and just really get back and put effort into our game to work as hard as we possibly could.”
Team Homan, which collected $100,000 in prize money for their Scotties win, has been dominant all season. The 2024 world champions have not lost a match since the first week of October. They’d won 24 in a row heading into the Scotties after perfect marches to a pair of Grand Slam titles and a Pan Continental Championships crown. Their overall win streak now sits at 35.
“We’re just having the best time together,” Homan underlined. “It’s so fun with this team. We don’t think about our record. We’re just going to the next game. We want to win every game. We’re going to give ourselves a chance to win every game we’re in.”
Ranked #1 on the World Curling Tour by a long shot, Team Homan will now represent Canada at the March 15-23 World Championships in Uijeongbu, South Korea, after taking last year’s world title in Sydney, N.S.
“It’s very special for us to go overseas and wear the maple leaf. I know we’re gonna hear everyone’s cheers all the way in South Korea,” added Homan, who is also firmly in the driver’s seat to earn Canada’s 2026 Olympic berth, to be determined at November’s trials in Halifax.
The Danielle Inglis Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club rink also had an excellent week at the Scotties to earn their first trip to the playoff round.
Also featuring Ottawa’s Kira Brunton, Calissa Daly and Cassandra de Groot, Team Inglis was one of three rinks to finish at 6-2 atop the Pool B standings. They wound up dropping their first playoff match 9-8 to Alberta’s Kayla Skrlik.
Team Quebec, which included Ottawa’s Lisa Weagle and Jamie Sinclair, had a shot to clinch a place in the playoffs but their draw went too deep in their final pool match against the eventual bronze medallists from Nova Scotia. That 7-6 defeat left them with a 5-3 record and outside the playoff picture.
Team Nunavut, skipped by Ottawa’s Julia Weagle, was winless in eight matches, with half of their games decided by three points or less.
Team Frlan wins bronze at U18 curling nationals
The Huntley Curling Club rink of skip Katrina Frlan, Erika Wainwright, Samantha Wall and Lauren Norman won the bronze medal at the Canadian under-18 curling championships in Saskatoon.
Team Frlan went 4-2 in pool play and then won their first playoff game handily over New Brunswick 10-3 before falling to the eventual champions from Nova Scotia 6-4 in the semi-finals.
In the bronze medal match, Frlan scored a single point in the extra end to prevail 6-5 over British Columbia.
Ottawa’s Connor Elkins and Liam Rowe played lead and third for Tyler MacTavish’s Kitchener-Waterloo rink at the men’s U18 nationals.
Ontario’s MacTavish won eight consecutive matches to reach the championship game before settling for silver behind Nova Scotia’s Zach Atherton, who went 9-0.
Ivanie Blondin adds 2 more medals to World Cup count
Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin finished her World Cup speed skating meet in Poland with her patented pair of medals on the final day of competition Sunday.
The 34-year-old first hit the podium in the women’s mass start event, where she crossed the line third behind winner Marijke Groenewoud of the Netherlands and Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida.
Blondin was not smiling during the medal ceremony as she collected her second podium in five mass start races this season.
“It was pretty feisty out there,” she said later via Speed Skating Canada. “I am happy to get on the podium, but definitely frustrating where the finish was. There was lots of drama in that race again.
“It was a fast race from start-to-finish, which I liked and that played to my advantage, but in the final sprint there were a couples of elbows that weren’t to my advantage. It is what it is. I’m always learning every race and trying to get better for the next one.”
Within minutes of receiving her mass start medal, Blondin returned to the ice for the women’s team sprint event and anchored Canada to silver alongside Béatrice Lamarche and Carolina Hiller, finishing with a time of 1:28.30. Host Poland was .23 seconds faster for first.
“We have been consistent all year. We have a good strategy and it worked well (Sunday),” Blondin said of her sprint team, which finished second overall in this season’s World Cup standings. “The last two (races) were really good. It was a close one with Poland (Sunday) and we should be proud of that. This gives us a lot of confidence going into World Championships.”
The 2025 World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships will be held from Mar. 13-16 in Norway. Before that is the season’s final World Cup event Feb. 28-Mar. 2 in the Netherlands.
Blondin was also ninth in the women’s 1,500 m and 13th in the 3,000 m at the Poland World Cup, while Isabelle Weidemann was seventh in the 3,000 m and Jake Weidemann was 15th in the men’s mass start as well as 14th and 24th in the B divisions of the men’s 1,500 m and 5,000 m.
All three local athletes are products of the Gloucester Concordes Speed Skating Club, which hosted its first competition since the pandemic on the weekend.
The meet included a provincial circuit race as well as an east regional series event for younger and novice skaters.
Gloucester’s Eric Mercer, Marc Hinton and Liam Gimeno all topped their categories at the provincial event along with Luca Ning of the Ottawa Pacers.
The club is marking its 35th anniversary this season, having produced four Olympians and many more national and international competitors, plus international officials and community leaders.
“I am proud of the club that my mom started to help my sister and I, and the local community,” Christina Chénard underlined an email to the Ottawa Sports Pages. “Through dedication, excellent & dedicated coaching, and excited eager kids, we have helped grow the sport of speed skating in Ottawa, Ontario and Canada.”
Katherine Medland Spence 14th at Four Continents figure skating
In her ISU international championship debut, Nepean Skating Club product Katherine Medland Spence placed 14th out of 21 entries at the Four Continents Championships in Seoul, South Korea.
Medland Spence was 14th in both the short and long program to earn a combined score of 156.95 points. Chaeyeon Kim from host South Korea won decisively with a score of 222.38.
The 24-year-old won the first Canadian championships medal of her career with a bronze earlier this season, which also included a PGE Warsaw Cup win in Poland during her first international assignment from Skate Canada.
Vanessa Gilles captains Team Canada soccer, scores a game-winner
Ottawa’s Vanessa Gilles celebrated a couple of significant milestones in the Canadian women’s soccer team’s two most recent matches at the Pinatar Cup in Spain.
On Saturday, the 28-year-old two-time Olympian made her 50th appearance for Team Canada and scored the game-winning goal off a header in a 2-0 win over Mexico.
With usual captain Jessie Fleming arriving late and missing Canada’s opening match of the invitational event, Gilles wore the captain’s armband for the first time as her team tied China 1-1.
“Vanessa is a natural leader for me and it was a natural choice for me to give her the captain’s armband,” new Team Canada coach Casey Stoney told The Canadian Press.
Canada plays Taiwan to conclude the event on Tuesday.
Four Ottawa players helped Canada demolish its first two opponents at the CONCACAF under-20 women’s championships qualifiers in Trinidad & Tobago.
Canada plowed past Dominica 22-0 and Bermuda 9-0 to setup a Tuesday showdown with the host Trinidadians for a spot in the continental finals.
Ottawa’s Annabelle Chukwu, Ella Kettles, Teegan Melenhorst and Sofia Cortes-Browne are members of the U-20 women’s national team.
Back with Team Canada, Pam Buisa places 7th in world rugby sevens series event
Tokyo Olympian Pamphinette Buisa returned to the Canadian women’s rugby sevens team’s starting lineup for the rugby sevens world series event in Vancouver and helped Canada to a seventh-place finish.
The 28-year-old forward was a starter in Canada’s 26-19 opening match win over Brazil and again in 41-5 thumping of Spain. Buisa came on late in a 35-14 defeat to Australia and returned to the starting lineup for a 34-12 quarter-final loss to Olympic-champion New Zealand as well as a 27-10 victory over USA for seventh place.
Not long after coming back from a major injury, Buisa wasn’t selected for Canada’s 2024 Olympic team, which earned a silver medal in Paris.
The Canadians currently sit sixth in the overall standings through four of the season’s six rugby sevens series events.
University of Ottawa Gee-Gees products Elias Hancock and Jamie Armstrong played for Canada in a men’s invitational event held alongside the women’s tournament.
Canada comfortably won all four of its matches in a double round robin test against Japan and Trinidad and Tobago.
Armstrong tied for the team lead with four tries in his debut for Canada.
“I’ve never played in front of a crowd that big, so just hearing that was a special moment,” Armstrong said via Rugby Canada. “It’s my first tournament with the team so getting to play it in front of home fans like this has just been awesome.”
Total attendance over the three days of the 10th edition of the Vancouver event was 58,664.
Both Hancock and Armstrong will suit up for Canada again during next weekend’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Challenger event in South Africa. The Canadians will face Madagascar and Hong Kong in the preliminary round as they begin their campaign to earn back a spot on the top-tier international men’s sevens circuit.
Ravens, Gee-Gees earn top performances at conference track meets
The Carleton University Ravens qualified a program-best three athletes for the Canadian university track-and-field championships after their standout performances at the Quebec conference finals in Sherbrooke.
Josh Foster (triple jump), Connor Fraser (shot put) and Brianna Asiamah (shot put) won RSEQ individual titles and will compete at the U Sports nationals from Mar. 6-8 in Windsor.
Also hitting the provincial podium for Carleton were Rosalie Lupien (silver – pole vault), Foster in long jump (silver) and Ella-Grace Gilbert (bronze – triple jump) and the women’s 4×200-metre relay team of Rose Basu, Michaella Appiah-Kubi, Olajiire Fowler and Kaylyne Kabongo (bronze).
The fourth-ranked University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men’s 4×400 m relay team of Joel Gurnsey, Safwan El Mansari, William Harris and David Moulongou earned the school’s best all-time performance in the event with a silver medal at the Ontario University Athletics championships in Windsor.
The Gee-Gees’ Jessica Gyamfi also hit the OUA podium with a silver in the shot put, while Kathryn Moreland and Vienna Courteau secured U Sports berths as they finished fourth and fifth with personal-best scores in the women’s pentathlon.
Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club product Luca Nicoletti won three medals for McGill at the RSEQ championships, including gold in the men’s 300 m, while fellow Lion Allison Dewar was an Atlantic relay champ for the University of New Brunswick.
Ravens women repeat as OUA nordic skiing champs
Kanata Nordic product Helen McCulligh was the star performer of the OUA nordic skiing championships as her Carleton Ravens captured their third consecutive overall women’s title at the provincials in Sault Ste. Marie.
McCulligh, who earned Canada’s top nordic skiing result in 13th place earlier this year at the FISU Games, won the OUA women’s interval start free race by one minute, 44.4 seconds. The 20-year-old also earned a silver medal in the mass start classic and powered the Ravens women’s relay team to victory.
Carleton finished second in the men’s standings, while the Gee-Gees were second in the women’s event and third in men’s.
Earning OUA all-star honours for Carleton were McCulligh, Madelaine Galik, Sophia Giangrande, Maya Abraham, Isabella Pighin, Kaedan Ward, Wes Robinson-Shaw, Noah Vanderzon, Raphael Guerout, Darion Dillabaugh and Nathaniel Sneyd.
The Gee-Gees’ all-stars included Anna Sierra Heffernan-Wilker, Kate Mason and Milo Sircom-Brown, while uOttawa’s Emma Archibald was a double-winner in the para-nordic category.
At the OFSAA high school nordic skiing provincials in Sudbury, Louis-Riel’s
Evan Rebane and the Glebe Gryphons relay team were champions in the senior boys’ class.
Rebane dusted the field of 175 entrants to win the 7 km race by 49.6 seconds in 18:40.8, while Lluc Bou, Oscar Bereznai, Ben Batchelor, Zach Wells and Ian Taggart led Glebe to victory.
Other local podium performances came from Lisgar’s Ella Chernoff (junior girls’ bronze), Glebe’s Erich Schreiner (junior boys’ silver), the Nepean junior and senior girls’ relay team (both silver) and the Glebe junior and senior girls (both bronze).
Gee-Gees win back-to-back in OT to sweep first-round men’s hockey playoffs
Bradley Chenier scored the overtime series-winning goal for the uOttawa Gee-Gees in their opening-round OUA series against Ontario Tech Friday evening at uOttawa.
Just over a minute into the extra session, Chenier broke the 2-2 tie to give uOttawa the sweep.
“It’s nice to get some adversity here at the start of playoffs,” Chenier said via the Gee-Gees. “We battled back. We didn’t get all the bounces, but we worked for our bounces and it’s nice to get rewarded the right way.”
The Gee-Gees won the first game of the series by the same score, again in overtime, with Vincent Maisonneuve scoring the winner, assisted by Chenier and Marc-Antoine Seguin.
The national championships-host Gee-Gees will now head to Queen’s Wednesday for the first game of their best-of-three quarter-final series before hosting Game 2 Friday.
The Gee-Gees women’s hockey team will see their first postseason action in the OUA quarters at home on Thursday against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues.
3 local university basketball teams plow into OUA semis
The Carleton Ravens blasted out to an 18-0 lead and steamrolled the McMaster Marauders 98-45 in the OUA women’s basketball quarter-final round at home on Saturday evening.
Teresa Donato led the way offensively for the nation’s top-ranked team with 25 points as all 12 Ravens played seven minutes or more in the contest.
Carleton, which went 22-0 in the regular season, will host Toronto Metropolitan in the semi-finals this coming Saturday at 6 p.m.
The uOttawa Gee-Gees also advanced to the OUA women’s basketball semis on the opposite side of the bracket thanks to a solid 71-52 win over the Queen’s Gaels at home on Saturday.
Allie McCarthy hit 20 points as her Gee-Gees advanced to face Windsor with the chance to earn a national championships berth. That match will also take place in town at 6 p.m. next Saturday.
It will be the same scenario for the uOttawa Gee-Gees men’s basketball team as they host Toronto Metropolitan Saturday at 8 p.m.
The Gee-Gees plowed past Laurentian from the opening tip-off of their quarter-final match as they started with a 13-0 run. Ankit Choudhary led the way for uOttawa with 19 points, while Jacques-Mélaine Guemeta had 16.
The Ravens men were eliminated in the quarter-finals with an 86-83 defeat at Queen’s.
Perfect Algonquin Wolves win playoff opener, to host OCAA finals
The Algonquin Wolves women’s basketball team kept its perfect record intact with a 59-45 home-court victory over reigning-champion Lambton in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association quarter-finals.
OCAA east player of the year Dasia McDonald led the way with 24 points and 12 rebounds.
Algonquin will host the OCAA championships on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1. The Wolves will meet Humber in Friday’s semi-final at 7:30 p.m.
The Algonquin men’s basketball team’s season ended with a 98-67 playoff loss to Humber.
Capital Courts Academy gives Ottawa 3 perfect female basketball records at different levels
Capital Courts Academy completed a perfect 12-0 regular season to top the Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association girls’ east division standings with a 99-33 win over Redmond Academy on Saturday at Capital Courts Training Centre in Orleans.
CCA’s key victory en route to the unblemished record was an 83-77 season-opening win over Royal Crown, which lost to CCA by 10 again later in the season. No other opponent came within 20 points of CCA in its other 10 OSBA contests.
Louis-Riel finished 5-7 to place fourth in the middle of the OSBA east. CCA will host a quarter-final playoff game during its quest for a final four championship weekend berth. Crestwood is undefeated in the OSBA west division and beat CCA by three points when they faced off in North Pole Hoops league play.
Ravens alum Lloyd Pandi helps Canada to berth in FIBA AmeriCup
Ottawa’s Lloyd Pandi helped the Canadian men’s basketball team to a berth in the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup despite a pair of defeats in its most recent matches.
Canada topped its group in the qualification standings on the strength of point differential after earning 4-2 records alongside Dominican Republic and Mexico, who downed their Canadian visitors 74-65 and 98-94 respectively in matches on Friday and Monday.
Pandi, the former Carleton University Ravens star, played in all six of Canada’s matches over the three-segment qualifiers, averaging 12.4 minutes of court time and 2.8 points per game.
