Team Alberta in striking distance of Pool A’s top spot at 2026 Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship

A sprinkle of Cinnamon and a touch of Tao seem to be key ingredients for making giant killers. 

Team Alberta’s Zoe Cinnamon and Johnson Tao pulled off a big win over as high-profile of a duo as there is in competitive curling Tuesday afternoon to put themselves in a strong position to claim top spot in Pool A at the 2026 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, being held at the Cloverdale Curling Club in Surrey, B.C. 

Cinnamon and Tao handed previously unbeaten Rachel Homan and Brendan Bottcher an 8-5 defeat. That puts both teams at 4-1 with one game each remaining. A win for Team Alberta in their final round-robin game against Team Northern Ontario’s Lily Wright and Brendan Sinclair (Kakabeka Falls, 2-2) Wednesday morning would give them first place in Pool A and advance them directly to a quarterfinal on Thursday. The only other team that could also go 5-1 is 2026 Winter Olympians Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant, who play Team Homan/Bottcher in Wednesday’s final draw. Cinnamon and Tao shocked Team Peterman/Gallant in the event’s first draw 8-5, so Team Alberta possesses the tiebreaker over both teams. 

It’s the first national mixed doubles championship for both of them so they didn’t know what to expect, admitted Tao. 

“We knew if we played well we could contend with anybody,” said Tao, who grew up just west of Surrey in Richmond, B.C., before moving to Edmonton to attend the University of Alberta. “Our goal was to just try and sneak our way into the playoffs and go from there. We’ve put ourselves into a very good position now so it’s a big confidence booster for us going into the rest of the week.” 

They thought they were a bit unlucky when the draw first came out. But they chased bad luck with good skill. 

“If you beat them early then hopefully it’s easier to beat them later on,” said Cinnamon, who hails from Cochrane, Alta. “We decided everybody earned their way here, so anybody can beat anybody.” 

While they started with the U of A’s curling program at the same time six years ago, it wasn’t until last year they decided to team up in mixed doubles. Tao, who just joined curling legend Kevin Koe’s team replacing the departed Tyler Tardi, and Cinnamon, who plays third for provincial runner-up Serena Gray-Withers, reached the Alberta provincial semifinal last season and then won it this year. 

“We got off to a pretty good start so we just stuck with it,” said Tao, who is curling this week on ice he used to play on in the Optimist Curling League. “It was about 10 or 11 years ago, so it’s brought back a lot of memories of curling in the same club with a lot of my family here.” 

While Team Alberta is looking to clinch a quarterfinal berth, Team Ontario (Kira Brunton, Jacob Horgan, Ottawa) already has theirs. They clinched top spot in Pool D by breezing to a 7-1 six-end victory over Team Newfoundland and Labrador (Greg Smith, Jessica Wiseman, St. John’s, 2-3) to remain unbeaten at 5-0. The victory, combined with a 7-4 loss by Team Powers/Saunders (Halifax, 3-2) to Team New Brunswick (Melissa Adams, Alex Robichaud, Fredericton 4-1) gave Team Ontario top spot because they had already handed the Maritime team its only defeat.

“We knew we were capable of winning our pool and going 5-0. It’s a pretty nice feeling,” said Horgan. 

“We’ve been preparing for it since last year,” said Brunton. “We made it to the semi (they lost to eventual champions Kadriana and Colton Lott) and we knew we wanted to improve on that finish so we’ve been working hard on improving all the things we can do to get back into that position.” 

Brunton and Horgan have known each other since they played Little Rocks when they were four or five. They grew up in Sudbury, Ont., attending the same high school, Lockerby Composite, while curling at the Idylwylde Curling Club where they first started playing mixed doubles. They both moved to other cities after graduating from Laurentian University in Sudbury to pursue further academic degrees (she in psychology, he in business administration) so they stopped playing together. But then about three years ago they decided to give it another try and it’s been extremely successful. 

Getting together to practice can be difficult since they live in different cities. Despite that, they’ve been so successful that they’re ranked fourth in Canada. All the while each playing on elite level four-person teams. Brunton, 27, played third/vice-skip for Danielle Inglis and Horgan, 25, is fresh off playing a couple seasons for John Epping as well as being the alternate for Montana’s Brier champion Matt Dunstone, before Horgan and his brother Tanner joined Bottcher’s new team. 

“We just really believe in ourselves and each other. We believe we can make anything out there. So we’re playing with a lot of confidence, we’re playing with house money, there’s not a lot of pressure on us so we’re feeling good,” said Brunton. 

Team Ontario wasn’t the only one to secure a quarterfinal spot. Katie Ford and Oliver Campbell (Kitchener Waterloo, Ont.) claimed top spot in Pool C. They improved to 5-0 by defeating their nearest competition in the pool, Serena Gray-Withers and Victor Pietrangelo (3-2, Niagara Falls, Ont.), 6-4 Tuesday afternoon. Team Ford/Campbell were to close out their round robin Tuesday evening by taking on McKenna and Tanner Nathan (3-2, Sarnia, Ont.). Pool C lost a provincial champion when Team Nova Scotia (Marie Christianson, Nick Mosher, Halifax) had to pull out after Christianson was injured in a fall during a game Monday afternoon. 

The 28 teams are divided into four round-robin pools. All the pool winners will advance directly to the quarter-finals Thursday (7 p.m. PT). The teams with the next eight best records play a qualification round Thursday at 1 p.m. PT to determine the other four quarter-finalists. 

Team Québec (Sophie Sanscartier, Maxandre Caron Boucherville, Que.) sits atop the Pool B standings at 4-1 followed by Terri Weeks and Samuel Steep (3-1, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.) and Laura Neil and Scott McDonald (3-2, Kingston Ont.). 

Live streaming of the 2026 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship is available on Curling Canada’s YouTube channel.  

Live scores and standings will be available by CLICKING HERE. The round robin wraps up Wednesday with draws at 10 a.m., 1 and 4 p.m. PT. The  

For the schedule and team lineups, go to the official event website: www.curling.ca/2026mixeddoubles/ 

CLICK HERE for ticket information for the 2026 Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship.