One thing is clear: With just a couple of weeks until Canada's trials to determine who will represent the country at the 2026 Olympics, the top teams will be very difficult to beat.
With the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe being the last major competition before the Trials later this month in Halifax, it was important for the Canadian rinks to find their way – and Rachel Homan, Brad Jacobs and Matt Dunston certainly did.
All three finished Friday's preliminary round play with victories to improve to 4-0 and will now need to remain undefeated to win the Grand Slam of Curling.
Draw 13
Hoesli 6, Return 4
Ha 8, Kitazawa 6
H. Schwaller 9, Morrison 3
McEwen 11, Edin 5
Draw 14
Tirinzoni 8, Van 3
Lowes 6, Tabata 5
Jacobs 7, Muskatewitz 6
Waddell 8, Yu. Schwaller 7 (JK)
Draw 15
Fujisawa 8, Einarson 7
Epping 9, Kleiter 5
Homan 10, Yoshimura 3
White 9, Xu 5
Draw 16
Gym 9, Kan 3
Dunston 7, MacDonald 4
Vrana 5, Hasselborg 4 (SC)
Muath 8, Allen 2
The third GSOC tournament in a row will feature tiebreakers to determine the final eight spots for both men and women.
In women's action, Canada's Kerry Einarson will face Korea's Bo-Bae Kang, while Japan's Ikue Kitazawa will face Korea's Eun-ji Gim.
On the men's side, Italy's Joel Retornaz will face Canada's Mike McEwen.
There may not be a better match this week than Jacobs' match against Germany's Mark Muskatewitz on Friday.
Both teams swapped twos, producing some brilliant shots in the first half of the game to create a thrilling back four.
In the fifth we got the first “error” of the game: Jacobs scored, but only once. This left Muskatewitz open to take advantage of the game the German needed to qualify for the knockout stages.
Muskatewitz received a deuce out of six, increasing his chances of winning.
The seventh end was more of the same as Muskatewitz's team narrowly outplayed Jacobs' rink and gained the advantage while Jacobs threw his final stone. Although Jacobs made a difficult throw, he was unable to hold the shooter for the second throw, resulting in a tie.
But in the eighth end with little chance of winning, Jacobs and his team found their game in the first half and got the job done.
No punch was better than Jacobs' final one. Since one of them was already biting the four-foot high, he decided to place his last stone on the top 12-foot high to block Muskatewitz's easy path.
Jacobs took the lead, putting pressure on Muskatewitz to make the draw from four feet.
Unfortunately, he did the worst thing possible and snatched the stone from the sweepers' hands, throwing it hard to give Jacobs a thrilling victory.
Don't look now, but Scotland is arguably the best country overall for men's curling.
Usually the crazy throw is made by world number one Bruce Mouat or world number five Ross White, but this time it was world number thirteen Kyle Waddell who stole the show.
Waddell was down 6-3 in the sixth end and knew he had to do something big to get back into the game.
He achieved this with his final stone, a runback in which he moved a total of five stones, four of which belonged to Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller. This shot brought three points and evened the score.
There's nothing like taking a walk on the ice early in the morning to get the juices flowing.
Justin Hausherr, a member of Marco Hoesli's Swiss team, had that experience on Friday morning during the fourth end.
To get one point, Hoesley needed to make a shot that simply slipped past the defender in front. However, if not for Hausherr, Hoesli might have hit the defender because the team wasn't expecting the amount of curl they saw with the amount of weight they threw.
Hausherr did his job and kept the stone straight for an impressive one point.
It wasn't a pretty place for Einarson to be in the fourth end against Japan's Satsuki Fujisawa. Already trailing 3-2 without a hammer, Fujisawa was sitting four down when Einarson slid off the ice to throw her final stone.
The Canadian needed to hit and roll behind her two defenders, but if she rolled an inch too far, Fujisawa would have a chance for four.
Basically, she needed to be perfect.
With the game on the line, she hit a superb shot, rolling into perfect position and leaving Fujisawa tied at two. For Einarson it was a major victory.
Even though Fujisawa was the only one hanging on the board, you could tell that the momentum had changed and this showed the next end.
Val Sweeting, Einarson's third, made a beautiful shot, threading the needle with her first stone, leading to Einarson's 3-pointer to tie the game.
Despite losing 8–7, Einarson's strike in the fourth end gave her team the momentum to fight until the end.
Don't piss off Homan and her team or they will make you pay.
Team Japan Sayaka Yoshimura learned that lesson on Friday. Even though Yoshimura jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first half (something we've never seen Homan give up), those were the only points they scored as Homan and her team took things to the next level.
Homan responded immediately, scoring four goals in the second end.
But that was just the beginning, as it looked like all four members of Homan's team missed the mark, leading to two interceptions in the third end, one interception in the fourth and another interception in the fifth for another three points.
Yoshimura had rightfully seen enough and shook hands with Homan to end the 10-3 rout.
KIOTI GSOC Tahoe tiebreaker coverage will begin at 11:00 AM ET/8:00 AM PT on Sportsnet+, and quarterfinal coverage will begin on Sportsnet at 2:30 PM ET/11:30 AM PT.
Women's quarter-finals: 2:30 pm ET / 11:30 pm PT
Men's quarter-finals: 6:30 pm ET / 3:30 pm PT
Semi-finals for men and women: 10:30 pm ET / 7:30 pm PT
