Roar of the Rings: What are the most compelling matchups coming in?

Unlike a Season of Champions or a Grand Slam event where a large field means there's some margin for error for the top teams, the 'Roar of the Rings' has just an eight-team field on both men's and women's sides. The field, since it can be represented by more than one team from a province unlike a Scotties or a Brier, is also stacked, particularly on the men's side. It's difficult to imagine that the competition to represent Canada at the Olympic tournament in Sochi in February won't be more competitive than the actual curling event itself.

16 men's and women's curling teams invade Winnipeg this week for the proverbial 'Roar of the Rings'. After consulting the schedule, I've circled four draws on the calendar that I'll be sure to watch. At least one game from every draw is scheduled to be shown on either TSN or TSN2, and the feature games are usually determined throughout the week as the playoff races become more obvious.

The Eh Game's Don Landry has handicapped the field here, and the tournament kicks off Sunday afternoon (schedule here). These are the four games I have marked that are of particular interest to me...

#1 - Draw 14: Team Martin vs. Team Morris - Friday, December 6 8:30 a.m. CST

Not so much a grudge match, since the divorce of Kevin Martin and former vice-skip John Morris was relatively amicable, but a lot of Canadian curling fans have had this game circled on the calendar for a while. Morris, of course, threw third stones for Martin during the team's stretch of dominance between 2008 and 2010, where the team racked up two Briers, an Olympic gold medal and a World Championship gold.

The remaining pieces of the 2010 squad, Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy, have stuck around, but Morris is now skipping (throwing third stones, however) for Jim Cotter's Kelowna rink. The team's first head-to-head match since the split became an immediate storyline after Morris punched his ticket to the Roar with his win at the pre-trials. It could be worth brewing a large pot of coffee for. Those of us on the West Coast will have to wake up at 6:30 a.m. to catch it...

An added bonus: Team Martin has added 2006 gold medallist Brad Gushue to his squad as an alternate. Gushue failed to qualify his own team for the trials.

#2 - Draw 11: Team Homan vs. Team Jones - Wednesday, December 4 6:30 p.m. CST

Since failing to qualify for the Roar of the Rings in 2009 at age 20, skip Rachel Homan's team has exploded onto the national circuit. By contrast, Jennifer Jones has been an established household name for nearly a decade since her first Scotties win in 2005. She went just 2-5 in her first appearance at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials as a skip in 2009, while Homan failed to qualify for the event. Four years later the two teams are the obvious favourites coming in on the women's side.

It's probably reasonable to expect that these two squads face each other more than once. In the 2013 Scotties, Jones defeated Homan during the round robin, but Homan won in both the page playoff and the Finals. It is sports, and in a game as volatile as curling, with such a small field as it is this week, it isn't set in stone that both teams will be the two main contenders a week from now, but this should prove to be a very good game between two of the most intense skips in the sport. The Scotties final was a very well-curled game for both sides. The losing skip, Jones, curled a very strong 84%, but Homan was unflappable at 93%, deadly with her takeouts, and ran Jones out of rocks in the 10th end to win 9-6.

#3 - Draw 2: Team Jacobs vs. Team Stoughton - Sunday, December 1 6:30 p.m. CST

The first day of competition will see the rematch of last year's Brier final. Brad Jacobs' Soo rink was probably the underdog going into that affair, but decisively won 11-4 after 9 ends. Despite the win at the Brier and following that up with a silver at the World Championships, Jacobs snuck into the Roar by the skin of his teeth with a win over Gushue for the final spot.

Three losses is enough to eliminate any team, and there are probably five rinks jammed at the top clawing for three playoff berths. Stoughton turned 50 this past summer, so this may be his last chance to skip for Team Canada, as the sport has begun to open itself up to younger rinks, like that of Jacobs. Stoughton is still in good shape, but has been knocked out in the semifinals at both Grand Slam events so far this season. While there are two Manitoba rinks in Winnipeg this week (the other being Mike McEwen's) it's probably safe to suggest that Stoughton, a long-time contender at the Brier for Team Manitoba should have home ice advantage (whatever it's worth) when those two teams meet.

#4 - Draw 13: Team Howard vs. Team Koe - Thursday, December 5 6:30 p.m. CST

Glenn Howard was top on the money list in the 2009-2010 curling season, and had won the only Grand Slam played by the time the Roar of the Rings was held in December of 2009, but finished second to Martin. Coming into the Roar this season, Howard enters as the Masters' Champion from the Abbotsford bonspiel earlier in November, while Kevin Koe won the Canadian Open in Medicine Hat two weeks ago.

Both teams should be expected to be in contention as the week wears on, and this game could be made very important if either team is upset. This is the second last draw of the tournament, so other than being a good-looking draw on paper by the two hot teams coming into the Roar, it should have some playoff implications as well.

Cam Charron is a writer for Yahoo Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @camcharron.