Well, that didn’t take long.
On Day 2 of the Crown Royal Players’ Championship in Steinbach. Man., the new sweeping rules put out by World Curling just before the tournament began caused some drama. None other than the biggest name in curling, Canada’s Rachel Homan, was right in the thick of it on Wednesday.
The controversial moment happened in the fifth end of Team Homan’s match against Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa when Yumi Suzuki (Fujisawa’s second) was throwing her first stone.
Suzuki was attempting to freeze onto Homan’s shot rock sitting in the top four-foot.
As the rock travelled down the ice, though, her sweeper, Yurika Yoshida, noticed the rock was too heavy, and appeared to attempt to slow down the rock down with her sweeping technique.
Yoshida started sweeping beside the rock in a ‘knife position’ (a vertical position that is legal) while doing a single-brush push stroke. A regular sweep is a normal back-and-forth rhythm not pushing the broom into the ice while also not lifting the broom off the ice at the end of the stroke. A push stroke is someone pushing their body weight into the the ice surface to slow the rock down while finishing by lifting their broom to hopefully dump any type of debris to slow the rock down as well.
This technique has been effective for slowing rocks down all season, but according to the new rules put out by World Curling, the single-brush push stroke is no longer legal.
An official had already spoken with Fujisawa’s team prior to the fifth end about the sweeping, and so this was a second infraction. However, since there weren’t enough umpires for each sheet and no one was there to recognize the second illegal sweep, Homan took matters into her own hands.
“You can’t do that,” Homan said to Yoshida as she was sweeping in the illegal motion.
Homan let the play slide, but not before letting Fujisawa know she wouldn’t stand for it again.
“It’s fine, just don’t let it happen again,” she said.
Everything was fine after that moment, but if it happens again this week, especially against Homan, watch out.
Wednesday’s results (Full scores and standings)
Draw 4
Y. Schwaller 8, Casper 3
Retornaz 5, Jacobs 4
Hasselborg 6, X. Schwaller 5 (SO)
Gim 12, Yoshimura 4
Draw 5
Mouat 8, Edin 4
Whyte 6, McEwen 3
T. Peterson 5, Wrana 4
Einarson 8, Tabata 7
Draw 6
Shuster 7, Xu 4
Waddell 9, Dunstone 4
Fujisawa 5, Homan 4
Tirinzoni 8, Kitazawa 5
Draw 7
Yoshimura 7, Tabata 3
Wrana 6, Hasselborg 5
Mouat 7, Casper 6 (SO)
Retornaz 6, McEwen 2
Hot Starts
Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller is mowing down its opponents on the men’s side. They’ve started the week 2-0 and have scored 18 points in just 14 ends while also having a plus-10 point differential.
To no surprise, all three Scottish teams, Bruce Mouat, Ross Whyte and Kyle Waddell, have also started out hot with Mouat 3-0 while the others are 2-0.
For the women’s side there are a couple different names off to great starts this week that we aren’t used to seeing.
Korea’s Team Eun-ji Gim and USA’s Team Tabitha Peterson find themselves atop the leaderboard with undefeated records after an impressive first two days. They’re joined by a regular top team in Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni.
Canadian Olympic representatives struggle
The on-ice sweeping controversy wasn’t the only problem for Canada’s women’s Olympic team while facing Fujisawa. For the third straight time the two teams have faced off, Fujisawa walked away with the victory, this time 5-4.
Whether it’s Homan’s team just coming back from the Christmas break and trying to find their groove, or the fact Fujisawa had beat them twice in a row coming into the game, Homan herself just didn’t look the same.
It started in the first end when Homan had a great chance for three.
The team played a solid end and Homan made a great shot with her first that set them up for three, but it was her final shot that cost them points.
Fujisawa left Homan a wide-open double takeout, something Homan makes 99 per cent of the time. All Homan needed to do was hit the low side and keep the shooter to land a massive three.
Instead, she threw too much weight and the rock sailed wide, causing her to hit Fujisawa’s rock on the high side and jam on one of her own while losing her shooter as well.
That set the tone for the game, as Homan was unable to produce more than one point with hammer or any steals throughout the match.
Luckily for Homan, and Canada, Fujisawa will not be representing Japan at the Olympics.
Canada’s men’s Olympic representative, Brad Jacobs, didn’t fare much better.
Jacobs’ team was dominated in its opener against Whyte, losing 6-3 and afterwards on The Curling Group’s Devin Heroux’s post-game show he recognized that.
“We just weren’t our sharpest,” Jacobs said on The Curling Group’s post-game show with Devin Heroux. “We gotta get rid of a little rust.”
While the rust wasn’t as prominent in Jacobs’ second game of the week against Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz, who is also headed to the Olympics. It still wasn’t the Jacobs’ team we saw play at the Canadian Olympic trials in November.
The match was tight throughout with both teams making shots to limit the others’ scoring chances, but in the seventh end, Jacobs found himself in a pickle.
Already having used his blank in the fourth end, he had no choice but to either try and score two or allow Retornaz to steal.
Jacobs played the end to give up a steal, and did just that, giving up one to trail 5-3, but keeping the hammer.
However, having hammer didn’t seem to help when Jacobs went to throw his final stone. All he had was a super-thin double takeout that needed to end with the shooter still in the rings to score two.
Jacobs made it interesting, making the double no problem (not an easy shot), but wasn’t able to stick the shooter and lost.
Although Jacobs might have deserved a better result, he now sits 0-2 in the last tournament before the Olympics.
Best shot and biggest momentum swing
Slam after Slam, Kyle Waddell keeps making a name for himself.
This time it’s for an amazing shot while facing Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone.
With Dunstone leading 1-0 in the second end and sitting two before Waddell went to throw his final shot, he had two options.
Either redirect one of his own to potentially score one, but more than likely give up a steal of one, or attempt a crazy shot that would result in three or disaster.
Of course, Waddell went for chaos.
Waddell came through for his team, making a runback through a port into the four-foot to nail the double takeout and score three.
Nobody thought it was really possible, but Waddell made it and turned the game on its head.
The next time Waddell had hammer, his team played perfectly and Dunstone made a costly mistake, leading to a massive five-spot for Waddell.
The game didn’t last much longer as Waddell won 9-4 after six ends.
Crown Royal Players’ Championship coverage continues at 9:30 a.m. ET/ 6:30 a.m. PT Thursday on Sportsnet+ while coverage will begin on Sportsnet at 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT for Draw 9.
Featured matches
Jacobs vs. Waddell at 9:30 a.m. ET / 6:30 a.m. PT
Einarson vs. Yoshimura at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
McEwen vs. Waddell at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT
Dunstone vs. Jacobs at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT
