Tirinzoni reflects on winning first career GSOC title

Silvana Tirinzoni still gets emotional when thinking about her first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling title win.

Exactly one year ago on this day, Tirinzoni completed a stunning 6-5 come-from-behind victory over Rachel Homan to capture the inaugural Tour Challenge championship in a bizarre “fog bowl” women’s final in Paradise, N.L.

The Swiss skip reflected on that moment earlier this week during the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard.

“Just to think back I still get goose bumps,” Tirinzoni said. “It’s such a great moment. I hope we can win one more this year. That would be amazing.”

Stranger things have happened, but in the history of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling there have been few upside-down world games like this one.

Team Homan of Ottawa entered the final on a roll riding a 13-game win streak to start the season including a 6-0 run at the Tour Challenge.

Meanwhile, Tirinzoni’s squad barely made it into the playoffs thanks to a five-team logjam at 2-2 round-robin records that required tiebreakers. However, her team squeezed through and advanced directly to the quarterfinals based on draw-to-the-button scores to avoid the tiebreaker stage altogether while the other four teams had to duke it out to qualify.

Homan defeated Eve Muirhead in the quarterfinals and EunJung Kim in the semis while Tirinzoni topped Kelsey Rocque and Tracy Fleury to set up the championship match.

Humid weather led to frosty ice conditions all week and rain was on the forecast for “Championship Sunday,” but few could have predicted how much of an impact the weather would play. A layer of thick fog crept in at ice level at the Paradise Double Ice Complex ahead of the women’s final and continued to linger around during the game.

“I think I will never ever forget that game. It was so crazy,” Tirinzoni said. “Seriously, you couldn’t see the broom. We were just guessing, kind of, and it was really, really crazy.”

Homan took control early with the hammer scoring three points in the second end. The teams alternated singles through the third and fourth ends and again through five and six as Homan maintained a three-point advantage leading 5-2 entering the final two frames.

Tirinzoni scored a deuce in the seventh to close within one point, but gave up the hammer coming home. Still, with the fog hovering around nothing was guaranteed.

Coach Gerry Adam instructs Team Tirinzoni during a timeout in the Tour Challenge women’s final against Team Homan. (Photo: Anil Mungal)

Tirinzoni went to work and sat a triangle of counters in the house following her last shot: one at the back of the 12-foot circle, another on the right side of the eight-foot circle, and shot rock just below the tee-line to the left edge of the four-foot circle.

Homan threw her last shot through the hazy fog and it emerged on the other side just a hair away from grazing Tirinzoni’s shot stone. A steal of one to tie it was guaranteed, but then came the stunning twist: the rock wasn’t slowing down. Homan’s stone continued to slide into the paint of the 12-foot circle giving up a steal of two and the win.

[brightcove videoID=4481744300001 playerID=2540680026001 height=270 width=100% autostart=false]

Tirinzoni leaped into the air hugging second Esther Neuenschwander with third Manuela Siegrist and lead Marlene Albrecht joining them in celebration of a dream victory that came true.

“It was an unbelievable feeling,” Tirinzoni said. “I knew because of the hard conditions it’s not an easy shot. Usually she’s going to make that easy but because it was such tough conditions I knew it wasn’t that easy. I just couldn’t believe that we actually stole two.”