Canada’s Team Homan brings home silver from 2025 Pan Continental Championships

VIRGINIA, Minn. — Canada’s Team Rachel Homan bowed 7-6 to Team Rui Wang of China Sunday in the women’s gold-medal game of the 2025 United States Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships.

China stole a decisive point in the seventh end and it played a crucial role in its victory at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center.

After two wonderful shots from Canada — a perfect split by vice-skip Tracy Fleury and a double-takeout by Homan — Wang executed a perfect hit-and-roll behind cover, and Homan’s attempt to make a short raise takeout to remove the Chinese stone wrecked on a guard and left China with a 5-3 lead and momentum that Canada couldn’t grab back.

“We had some opportunities, and just didn’t quite guess right in the spots that we hadn’t seen,” said Homan, whose team is rounded out by Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown, and coaches Renee Sonnenberg and Viktor Kjell. “That was really the difference.”

Team Canada got off to an ideal start. The unbeaten Chinese team had last rock in the first end, but Team Homan was able to force them to a single in the first, and then took advantage of a miss to score two in the second.

China was held to a single again in the third, but executed two perfect freezes in the fourth to force Canada to take a single, and then after a blanked fifth got its own deuce in the sixth to take a 4-3 lead.

After the big seventh-end steal, Canada was in chase mode but couldn’t mount the comeback. Team Homan was held to one in the eighth, and China essentially put the victory away with a ninth-end deuce.

The team will take a few days off before heading to Lake Tahoe, Calif., for a Grand Slam event beginning on Nov. 4. Following that, it’s a trip to Halifax for the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, presented by Connect Hearing.

“You’re going to learn more from your losses,” said Homan, whose team arrived in Minnesota fresh on the heels of winning a Grand Slam event seven days ago in Nisku, Alta. “We know what to work on moving forward. I think we came into this a little bit tired, and I’m really proud of my team for battling through when it was hard, and when it was a bit of a grind mid-week. We made a ton of shots out there. They (China) made everything, and kudos to them. It’s just been the end of a long two weeks for us, and we’re really proud of how we did.

“We’re really excited to get home and see our families, and recharge, and get some rest, and be ready for the next Slam.”

Earlier Sunday, Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary won the men’s gold medal, downing Team John Shuster of the United States 7-3.

In the bronze-medal games on Sunday morning, Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi claimed the men’s bronze medal, taking two in the 10th end for a 6-5 win over China’s Team Xiaoming Xu. In the women’s bronze-medal game, South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim posted an 11-8 win over Team Tabitha Peterson of the United States.

This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/