Homan melts down, Canada drops to unthinkable 0-3 in women's curling

The Canadian women's curling team finds itself caught between a (burned) rock and a hard place after falling 9-8 to Denmark in the 11th end on Friday.

Skip Rachel Homan's team now sits on a tournament-worst 0-3 record - unprecedented for a Canadian team at the Olympics.

Canada had led 6-3 after the fifth end and 8-6 after the eighth, but Madeleine Dupont's Danish rink never backed off from their esteemed opposition, erasing a two-point deficit in the 10th to force extra ends.

Unlike their previous game versus Sweden, skip Rachel Homan and Co. had the advantage of the hammer in the 11th, but with a chance to seal a win with a takeout on the final stone, Homan whiffed, leaving Denmark with the decisive steal.

Beyond the stunning defeat, the game was not without controversy, as Homan's decision to pull a burned stone in the fifth end raised eyebrows from both the CBC broadcast crew and her Danish opponents.

A stone is considered burned when an athlete makes contact with a stone while it is in motion. In this case, the opposing skip has the option to remove the burned stone from play, rearrange any stones where they were likely to have come to rest, or simply play on. Homan chose the former, despite little evidence that Denmark's infraction significantly impacted the stone's trajectory.

"I was thinking I’m pretty sure karma will hit you at one point," Denmark's Dupont said of Homan's decision after the game, according to CBC's Devin Heroux.

"Canada was playing afraid to lose. They’re the favorites and were terrified to go 0-3."

The reigning world champions out of Ottawa were tabbed as the gold-medal favorites. Now, their window for medal contention - any medal - is rapidly closing. Homan's team must essentially run the table over their next six games - and get a little lucky with results outside of their control - for Canada to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time since curling was officially added to the Olympic program in 1998.