Orléans native Rachel Homan played perhaps the best game of her life in Thunder Bay Sunday night to win her fifth Canadian Woman’s Curling Championship, putting her one win behind curling legends Colleen Jones and Jennifer Jones for the most Scotties titles all-time.

(L to r) Team coach Jennifer Jones, alternate Rachelle Brown, lead Sarah Wilkes, second emma Miskew, third Tracy Fleury and skip Rachel Homan take their victory walk down the ice after winning the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. FRED SHERWIN PHOTO

According to the stats kept by Curling Canada, Homan recorded the first perfect game ever played by a skip in the champ-ionship final, beating the previous mark of 99 per cent set by Colleen Jones in 2002.

In winning this year’s event, Homan managed to avenge back-to-back losses to her opposing skip, Kerri Einarson from Manitoba, who won both of their previous championship match-ups in 2020 and 2021.

Homan went into Sunday’s final as the prohibitve favourite along with third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes. Together they won all eight of their round robin games and both of their playoff games including an 8-5 win over the Einarson foursome in the 1/2 Page playoff game.

The team also boasted a 46-3 record so far this season with three Grand Slam of Curling titles heading into the Scotties. But of their three losses, two were against Team Einarson, setting up the highly anticipated showdown in Sunday’s final.

Most prognosticators predicted that the eventually winner would be the skip who managed to make the fewest mistakes.

The game started off with Homan blanking the first end with last rock. She then was forced to settle for a single point in the second end.

In the third, it was Einarson’s turn to blank the end with her last shot, but then just as she had done to Homan, Einarson was forced to settle for a single point in the fourth when Homan threw back-to back doubles takeouts. Homan was then forced to settle for a single point in the fifth end, but after Einarson blanked the sixth, Homan managed to steal a point in the seventh when Einarson’s attempted draw to the four foot was a touch heavy.

The key turning point of the game came in the ninth end, when Einarson made her second misthrow of the contest, coming up light on her last shot against two Homan counters to give the defending champions a seemingly insurmountable 5-1 lead.

A third misthrow in the ninth would provide Homan with yet another stolen point and that was all she wrote as Einarson conceded defeat without playimg the final end.

The win extended Team Homan’s win-ning streak at the Scotties to a record-tying 22-0 over the past two years.

The team will now represent Canada at the World Championships in Korea from March 15-23 where they will attempt to defend their crown.

“I can’t wait to represent Canada, this is an unbelievable feeling,” Homan said after curling and calling an unbelievable game.

(L to r) Rachel Homan, Tracy Fleury, Rachelle Brown, Emma Miskew Sarah Wilkes and Jennifer Jones. FRED SHERWIN PHOTO