Grand Slam of Curling: Eve Muirhead in calm, cool control in Canadian Open win over Homan

Eve Muirhead is going to have a nice holiday season.

"To come all this way, just before Christmas, get a nice, big cheque, it's always nice,"  she said with a smile.

Muirhead was answering questions on Sportsnet, just moments after her 5-3 win over Rachel Homan at the 2014 Canadian Open.

Personally curling 90% for the game, the 24 year old Scottish skip rarely showed any signs of letting things get away in this one, after an early steal gave her and her teammates Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams and Sarah Reid a grip on the eventual outcome.

In the end, a draw fully to the eight foot was all she needed to salt it away and it's what she got, facing a couple of Homan stones that would have stolen a victory had the lass from Perth been badly light or badly heavy.

Muirhead is one of the game's most entertaining skips. Outside of the very early ends of a game, she is most often aggressive with her calls and willing to take on tough shots in the blink of an eye. She puts rocks in play and seems fearless when it comes to what she'll leave for her opponents in exchange for the chance to score big.

This week, her foursome was all ablaze, defeating Team Jennifer Jones twice and upending Team Val Sweeting - winners of two major events so far this season -  in the semi-final. In that win over Sweeting, Muirhead played a sixth end all full of gambling, to the head-scratching of the Sportsnet commentators crew. All it got her, however, was the possibility of a hit and stick for five. Muirhead rolled the shooter out, but grabbed the game by the throat with a four-banger.

Homan, of course, is no shrinking violet either, once she gets her preferred first end blank out of the way. Bad luck on a rock that should have curled all day but didn't, meant a Muirhead steal of two in the second end had the two-time Canadian champion in a chase position for most of the game.

Some terrific shooting by Homan, under pressure, kept it close through the middle ends. In the third, with the disappointment of the second end steal still reverberating, Homan played a pistol of a raise, picking a Muirhead stone out of the rings and very nearly getting a blank. As it was, it was a happy one point to get. In the fourth, Homan answered Muirhead's beauty of a hit and flip behind cover with a surgical tap out that forced the 2013 World Champion to one.

With Muirhead building another pressure-filled end in the 5th, Homan pulled off a difficult draw to the lid to cut the lead to 3-2. Outside of that, she struggled with her draws and as commentator Kevin Martin mentioned, that was the difference (although it bears repeating that the draw Homan threw in the second seemed like a good one, but it inexplicably failed to curl).

"Delighted," Muirhead said in her post-game Sportsnet interview. "The girls played great out there. We played the scoreboard really well."

That they did, keeping Team Homan in the rearview the rest of the way after the early steal and riggling loose each time it appeared there could be trouble.

Muirhead, ranked fourth in the Order of Merit heading into the Canadian Open, will now leapfrog over Homan for third spot in the 'year-to-date' point standings.

Team Homan has now lost the last four finals it has appeared in, including last weekend's defeat at the hands of Team Sweeting in the Canada Cup.

GUSHUE WINS MEN'S TITLE AT 2014 CANADIAN OPEN - CLICK HERE TO READ