 Nova Scotia's Team Black (Photo: Andrew Klaver/Curling Canada) celebrates as they officially clinch a berth in the semifinal at the 2025 Montana's Canadian Curling Trials in Halifax. By Meredith McCullum The home team is moving on. Christina Black's rink out of the Halifax curling club has secured a berth in the 2025 Canadian Curling Trials semifinal where they will face Manitoba's Kerri Einarson on Thursday afternoon. Black, backed by Jill Brothers, Jenn Baxter, Karlee Everist and Marlee Powers, said her team had "a little Black magic" and a curling legend on their side today, as the results played out in their favour. "We knew we had to do everything we could do in our game and hope things worked out," said Black. "But we also knew there's this new curling god up there and you always say you pray to the curling gods. We got the best one up there now who's on our side. She's doing everything she can and we'll just go and leave it all out there like she would." "You know, she's a fighter," Black continued. "She didn't give up her whole career, her whole life. So we're like, we can do this." Entering the final women's round robin draw, there were 16 potential scenarios that could have played out, depending who won and lost in each of the games. The results would determine whether it was Black, Alberta's Selena Sturmay or Manitoba's Kaitlyn Lawes moving on. The ending was dramatic. Sturmay exited the ice first with a win over British Columbia's Corryn Brown, 9-4. Then, Black made a double to score 3 and secure a 10-6 win. While all this was happening, Ontario's Rachel Homan picked up a crucial victory over Einarson, booking herself a bye to the best-of-three final and a day off on Thursday while she awaits the winner of the Black vs Einarson semifinal. "It's a big game for us to get into the final and get a bit of rest tomorrow," said Homan, following her team's victory. The last sheet remaining on the ice was Lawes taking on Alberta's Kayla Skrlik. The numbers had been tallied: A Lawes win would mean a three way tie, giving the tiebreaker to Black with the best Last Stone Draw (LSD) rank. A Lawes loss would put Sturmay into the semi, as she held the head-to-head win over Black. Trailing 6-5 in the tenth end, and with everyone in the arena watching, Lawes had a long runback to score four and win the game. She made the shot and the Nova Scotia crowd erupted, knowing Lawes win meant their very own team Black would move on to the playoffs. "We go out there and we win. And then it's like, oh my god, now we need Kaitlyn to win. Like, please. Oh my gosh, please," said Black. "But I could barely watch. I just had to hold my breath. And I was glad they were sweeping it out of her hands. And I literally like jumped for joy, I don't know, for her to make her shot. I jumped up, we all did. I screamed. It's so much emotion." Einarson and Black faced off in the first draw of the event, with Einarson routing Black 12-5. Black's confidence has increased throughout the event though, and her team will have the home crowd advantage, as they have all week. "We played them, obviously, in game one. Didn't go very well for us," said Black's third Jill Brothers. "But the nice thing is now is we've won four of our last five games. And one was, like, essentially on last rock. So, you know, we know we're making a lot of shots...we know what we're doing out there." The last 36 hours have been emotional for many Canadians, but especially for the Nova Scotia Curling community. Hundreds of stories and tributes for Colleen Jones have poured across social media, and Brothers took a moment to soak it all in this morning before preparing for her team's game against Cameron. "I watched all the videos on CBC, and everything everyone was putting out," said Brothers. "I kind of got that out of me. And, yeah, it's just, yesterday was a really hard day. There was a lot of emotions, really exhausted. But, yeah, we know we've got one of the best on our side." Black's rink will look to continue carry their momentum forward into the semifinal against Einarson on Nov. 26 at 1 p.m. AST. Catch the games on TSN (Canada) and TSN YouTube (internationally). Linescores and standings are available at Curlingzone.com. |
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Calgary's Brad Jacobs (Photo: Curling Canada/Andrew Klaver) defeats Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone 6-5, winning 2 games to 0 in a best-of-three final at the Montana's Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax, N.
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