Team Homan lead back on the air
Joanne Courtney will make another CBC Sports commentating appearance, this time during the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
The lead thrower for Ottawa’s Team Rachel Homan was confirmed to join longtime analyst Mike Harris and play-by-play host Bruce Rainnie as the Canadian public broadcaster, which owns the domestic Olympic broadcast rights, announced its Beijing broadcast plans.
Like most other sports, the curling crew will be broadcasting from CBC production centres, in this case Toronto. That means Courtney will be able to represent Ontario at the Canadian women’s championship, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, when it gets underway in Thunder Bay, Ont. on Jan. 28.
The final is scheduled for Feb. 6. The Olympic mixed doubles competition begins on Feb. 2, meaning Rainnie and Harris will start coverage without Courtney.
This will mark the second time Courtney has commentated on CBC. She joined the crew at the 2019 national mixed doubles championship.
Courtney replaces Jill Officer, who will be serving as an athlete mentor with the Canadian Olympic Team in Beijing.
“The current state of the pandemic has Canadians focused on their health and well-being,” said Chris Wilson, Executive Director of Sports and Olympics at CBC. “Our team at CBC is just as concerned about this as we prepare to produce our second Olympics in six months under pandemic conditions. Our number one priority is keeping our team safe and healthy, whether they be in Beijing, Toronto or Montreal.
“That said, we also believe that the Olympic Winter Games can once again provide some relief and escape for Canadians and unite the country around the performances of Team Canada just as Tokyo did last summer. With this in mind, we’re offering around-the-clock coverage of Beijing 2022 across all of our platforms, giving audiences the choice to watch and follow however, wherever and whenever they want. We look forward to the start of the Games and experiencing them with audiences from coast-to-coast-to-coast.”
CBC’s coverage of Beijing 2022 will be strong, with more than 2,400 hours of live content across the public broadcaster's multiple platforms—including TSN, Sportsnet and CBC Gem.
The appointment was predicted on a recent episode of the 2 Girls and a Game podcast.
Courtney joins a group of recent high-performance curling athletes who have dipped their toe into televised curling broadcasts. The growing list, separate to the myriad of opportunities available on livestreams, includes Richard Hart, Brad Gushue, David Nedohin, and Jennifer Jones among others.
Courtney might not be competing in Thunder Bay, should her skip receive Curling Canada’s mixed doubles appointment for Beijing. Ontario curling’s governing body, CurlON, recently announced that should that appointment occur, Toronto’s Hollie Duncan will receive the association’s berth into the Tournament of Hearts.