‘We’ve always stuck together,’ Emma Miskew says on eve of second Olympics with Rachel Homan

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EMMA MISKEW
Sport: Curling
Event: Women’s
Age: 36 (Turns 37 on Feb. 14)
Hometown: Ottawa
Residence: Ottawa
Local Club: Ottawa Curling Club
Second Olympics
Instagram: @emmamiskew

VIEW EMMA’S COMPETITION SCHEDULE HERE.

By Keiran Gorsky

As years fly by and titles pile up, Emma Miskew’s career-long partnership with Rachel Homan gives pause for reflection – not only on their now record haul of Grand Slam trophies, but on the times winning didn’t come quite so easily.

In this relentlessly mental sport, vibes are perpetually on thin ice. When nothing is right, when shots are missed, it becomes too easy to deduce that something is fundamentally wrong – that something, or someone, needs to change.

Maybe that would have been the easy answer after Team Homan’s swift departure from their last shared Olympic outing at Pyeongchang in 2018 – a rare blemish on their near spotless record.

In South Korea, they dropped their first three games and ended the round robin with a losing record, ultimately failing to qualify for the semifinals. The result kicked off Canada’s now 12-year Olympic medal drought in women’s curling.

But it wasn’t cause for panic.

“I think that a lot of people decide, after going through some hard years, to go a different direction or make a team change, but we’ve always stuck together and worked hard together,” Miskew reflected on her teammate since their earliest days in curling, Rachel Homan. “Her talent and her drive and everything has also motivated me to do the same on my end through all these years. So we motivate each other, we help each other.”

Eight years gone by and 20 Grand Slam trophies in tow, Team Homan returns to the Olympics a different animal in 2026. The team hasn’t maintained complete continuity – in 2020, Homan created something of an uproar in the curling community by parting ways with long-time teammate Lisa Weagle. In 2022, they also brought in Tracy Fleury to replace Joanne Courtney, and shifted Miskew from vice-skip to second. Sarah Wilkes is now Team Homan’s lead.

But through it all, the beating heart at the core of Canada’s most decorated curling team has stayed the same. And they are more than ready to add a gold medal to their display case.

The Ottawa Curling Club athletes haven’t had much time to settle down since securing their spot in Cortina d’Ampezzo by winning Canadian Curling Trials in November. She and Homan greeted the New Year with dual inductions into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, which changed course to induct active athletes who’d hit Hall-worthy heights thanks to the pair’s dominance in the curling world.

“They decided that they wanted to be able to honour athletes before they officially retired, and that’s so nice,” said Miskew, who will be inducted in May. “I’ve spent my whole life here, and we always feel all the love and support from Ottawa. To get into the Hall of Fame is a very big honour, so we’re really happy about that.”

The past two seasons certainly cemented Homan and Miskew’s selection. They became the first team to go through the full Scotties tournament undefeated when they won the 2024 national women’s curling title.

Team Homan repeated that perfect record in 2025 and went on to earn their second consecutive world title as they concluded a dominant run of 142 match wins and just 15 losses over those two seasons.

Rachel Homan (left) and Emma Miskew. *File photo*

Team Homan also became the winningest Grand Slam of Curling team in either the men’s or women’s divisions when they broke the record with their 19th tournament triumph in Fall 2025.

Despite making history over and over, it’s not exactly establishing new levels of dominance that Team Homan wants to have as their legacy. In the lead-up to the 2025 worlds, Miskew said she hoped they could inspire the next generation of curlers. She pitched her friendship with Homan as a great example of why youngsters should get into the sport, instead of flashing any of their prizes.

“Some of my best friends have come out of it,” Miskew highlighted. “(We’d like) young girls to know that you can find not only a really cool sport to play, but also (find) some of our closest friends and meet lots of great people.”

Homan and Miskew first met at a Little Rocks program at the Rideau Curling Club and later teamed up to win four consecutive Ontario Bantam titles from 2003 to 2006, followed by a 2007 Canada Winter Games gold medal.

They’ll now be making their second Olympic appearance together, having qualified for their first Games in 2018 by winning the Canadian trials in Ottawa at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Miskew indicated that while the experience they gained at their last Olympics was invaluable, their approach heading into Cortina is not radically different from any other competition.

As ever, Miskew is doing everything possible to ensure she is feeling physically ready and that her shot-making and sweeping are on point. Beyond that, the plan is to avoid being sidetracked by the sheer scope of a competition that constantly threatens to distract.

Unlike in Pyeongchang, where all athletes were packed into two villages, their accommodations in Italy will be somewhat more remote. Curlers will be among the 1,400 athletes populating the pop-up trailer park in Cortina d’Ampezzo, making for one of six Olympic villages.

It isn’t any great loss. In contrast to so many of her peers, Miskew does not see the village as central to the Olympics experience. Quite the opposite, she hopes the layout leaves them less vulnerable to the general hubbub such arrangements lend themselves to. Team Homan has nine round robin games in eight days, then hopefully two more in the playoffs.

“Once we start, our job is to perform, and we do what we do best when we’re not doing a whole lot of extra activities during a competition,” explained the Brookfield High School and Carleton University grad. “It’s mentally and physically draining as it is. So we just try to stick to our bubble and our team and do what we need to do on our end to best prepare ourselves.”

Try as journalists have to inject a dose of drama into their lives, Miskew suggested that Canada’s medal drought isn’t racking her mind. With myriad overarching narratives, real and imagined, the only real constant is the one who’s been by her side for the last 25 years.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better person to go through this journey with,” Miskew underlined.

2026 MILANO CORTINA WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES TEAM HOMAN WOMEN’S CURLING SCHEDULE

*Homan is ranked No. 1 in the world with a 49-12 win-loss record in 2025-26

(Date, country, world ranking, opponent, time EST, opponent’s 2025-26 record, career head-to-head record)

FEB. 12 – Denmark, No. 16 Madeleine Dupont, 3:05 a.m., 48-18, 3-2 (Homan)

FEB. 13 – United States, No. 12 Tabitha Peterson, 8:05 a.m., 39-21, 12-1 (Homan)

FEB. 14 – Great Britain, No. 19 Rebecca Morrison, 3:05 a.m., 26-18, 2-0 (Homan)

FEB. 14 – Switzerland, No. 2 Silvana Tirinzoni, 1:05 p.m., 57-9, 32-10 (Homan)

FEB. 15 – Day off

FEB. 16 – China, No. 15 Wang Rui, 3:05 a.m., 28-20, 5-2 (Homan)

FEB. 16 – Japan, No. 7 Sayaka Yoshimura, 1:05 p.m., 37-29, 10-1 (Homan)

FEB. 17 – Sweden, No. 9 Anna Hasselborg, 8:05 a.m., 29-14, 20-12 (Homan)

FEB. 18 – Italy, No. 28 Stefania Constantini, 1:05 p.m., 27-25, 4-4 (tie)

FEB. 19 – South Korea, No. 3 Gim Eun-ji, 8:05 a.m., 50-24, 12-3 (Homan)

FEB. 20 – Women’s semifinals, 8:05 a.m.

FEB. 21 – Women’s bronze-medal game, 8:05 a.m.

FEB. 22 – Women’s gold-silver medal game, 5:05 a.m.

Add Team Homan’s schedule to your calendar on this page.

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