16 teams vie to be Team Canada for Milano Cortina 2026 at Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials

The Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials are upon us, setting the stage for one team to take the next step towards achieving their Olympic dreams.

There will be 16 teams competing in Liverpool, Nova Scotia from December 30 to January 4. The winning duo will go on to compete at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, taking place April 26-May 3 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The goal there will be to secure Canada’s spot in the Olympic mixed doubles tournament at Milano Cortina 2026—a spot that the Trials champions would also claim for themselves.

The first eight spots in the Olympic mixed doubles curling tournament, which includes one for host Italy, will be awarded based on combined placements from the 2024 and 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships. Canada, represented by Kadriana Lott & Colton Lott, finished fifth at the 2024 edition.

As the reigning national champions, the married couple from Gimli, Manitoba were the first qualifiers for the upcoming Trials.

The other podium finishers from the 2024 Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship will also be at the Trials: silver medallists Laura Walker & Kirk Muyres; and bronze medallists Jocelyn Peterman & Brett Gallant.

Peterman & Gallant would both be looking to participate in their second straight Olympic Games, after having been members of Team Canada’s women’s and men’s teams, respectively, at Beijing 2022. They have twice represented Canada at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, winning silver in 2019 and finishing fifth in 2022. Walker & Muyres won bronze at the 2018 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.

Two teams qualified for the Trials based on the 2023-24 Canadian Mixed Doubles Ranking: Nancy Martin & Steve Laycock, as well as Jennifer Jones & Brent Laing. Jones is seeking her third Olympic appearance, having skipped Canada to women’s gold at Sochi 2014 before being Canada’s oldest athlete at Beijing 2022. Laing was the second on Canada’s men’s team at PyeongChang 2018. Together the husband-and-wife duo finished fourth at the 2023 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.

The winners of three qualifier events are also in the Trials field. That includes Rachel Homan & Brendan Bottcher. Homan is chasing a third straight Olympic appearance. After skipping her women’s team at PyeongChang 2018, she and John Morris missed the mixed doubles playoff by one spot at Beijing 2022.

Also winning qualifier events were Brittany Tran & Rylan Kleiter as well as Jennifer Armstrong & Tyrel Griffith.

The last eight teams qualified for the Trials based on the Canadian Mixed Doubles Rankings on December 9. Those teams are: Riley Sandham & Brendan Craig; Lisa Weagle & John Epping; Taylor Reese-Hansen & Corey Chester; Anne-Sophie Gionest & Robert Desjardins; Melissa Adams & Alex Robichaud; Jessica Zheng & Victor Pietrangelo; Paige Papley & Evan Van Amsterdam; and Jaelyn Cotter & Jim Cotter.

Weagle was a member of the Canadian women’s teams at both PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 before serving as Team Canada’s Chef de Mission for the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games.

The 16 teams at the Trials will be divided into two pools of eight. Round robin matches will be played from December 30 to January 2. The top three teams in each pool advance to a six-team page playoff that starts on January 2. The top two teams from each pool cross over to compete for a direct spot in the Page 1v2 game. The losers of those games will play the third-placed teams for spots in the Page 3v4 game.

The winner of the Page 1v2 game goes straight to the final while the loser plays the winner of the Page 3v4 game in the semifinal. The winner of that game advances to the final from which the Trials champion will be crowned.

You can catch all of the action streamed live on Curling Canada’s YouTube channel.

The Canadian Curling Trials to determine the men’s and women’s teams that will be Team Canada at Milano Cortina 2026 will be held in November 2025. For the first time, Canadian athletes will be permitted to qualify for both mixed doubles and four-player curling at the Olympics.