
Brad Jacobs and Bruce Mouat had just finished up an epic Olympic gold-medal game rematch, but there was work left to do.
After Jacobs’ Shield Curling Club edged Mouat’s Northern United 5-4 thanks to a final-end deuce on Tuesday at Rock League, the Cortina combatants shuffled over to the sheet next door, where a critical women’s game between Shield’s Kerri Einarson and Northern’s Isabella Wranå was coming down to the wire.
Twelve curlers from both teams, plus their general managers, converged on Sheet C at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. Mouat offered advice to Wranå. Jacobs stood back and let Einarson, whose thinking time was down under one minute, do her thing.
In the end, an impressive last rock from Wranå scored three and sent Northern to a 5-4 victory, and a 2-1 win overall in the match, thanks as well to their 9-6 mixed-doubles triumph.
Northern — a team made up of players from across Europe — then gathered and yelled “awooooo” in a nod to their team logo, a wolf.
It was Rock League as The Curling Group CEO Nic Sulsky intended — competitive as ever, but with a twist.
“It’s kind of organized chaos out there as far as GM,” said Shield’s Carter Rycroft, “especially when you get down to the last end or so. There’s lots of timeouts going on. You can’t be everywhere at once. You’re trying to watch everything. So that makes it a little bit tough.”
Designing this format we dreamed of players from different national teams, uniting, bonding.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would take 1 day ❤️
Also, 3 of the first 4 @rockleaguecurl matches came down to last rock.
The baby is starting to walk. #LetsRock🥌🤘 https://t.co/LJKQSt6TBq
Now, Rock League has not been perfect through two days. The software on the video scoreboard reloads constantly. Crowds have been sparse, though organizers expect sellouts later in the week.
At one point, the in-arena announcer quite literally could not tell heads from tails, incorrectly calling a coin toss between Mouat and Rachel Homan, leading to a brief moment of confusion.
But if the goal of this one-week Rock League preview season is proof of concept, then you can see how it all might come together.
“It’s so cool when you put a lot of athletes together and you see different sides of everyone,” Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg said. “I would say you see the competitive side for sure in these people in how they want to get better everywhere. I think it’s competitive on the ice but definitely more social than normal around everything.”
Among the most interesting changes from your regular bonspiel has been strategy — four-person games are just seven ends, thinking time is roughly 80 per cent of normal, and a stone covering the pinhole in the final end is worth two points.
Team Homan stopped by the CBC Sports digital studio to share their excitement for the new curling league, Rock League, and why fans should tune in.
Rycroft, a 2002 Olympic silver medallist alongside Kevin Martin, said his role has been more hands-on than he expected as he bounces between the three sheets. He has yet to make an in-game lineup change, another Rock League wrinkle.
Players can be caught stealing glances at other’s sheets throughout each match, though most have said they are simply focused on their own games until the final rock is thrown.
Shield’s Tracy Fleury said that the biggest adjustment has been with the two-point pinhole rule — while Jacobs used it to his advantage to down Mouat in their match in the most consequential application of the rule to date.
“You just gotta adapt. It’s exciting, I think, for the spectators to get to enjoy some new rules and excitement and stuff. It does make the games exciting at the end for sure,” Fleury said.
In the afternoon draw, Maple United beat Typhoon Curling Club 2-1, with the Canadian mixed-doubles duo winning 11-5 and the Ross Whyte-led men’s team grabbing a 6-3 victory. Maple’s Rachel Homan fell 6-5 against Hasselborg in the women’s game.
Watch highlights of the Rock League match between Maple United and the Typhoon Curling Club in Toronto.
Hasselborg, who had a draw to the button to beat Homan, admitted she forgot about the two-point rule until her last rock was halfway home, and wound up with just the single point for the win.
“When I made my draw, we were just cleaning it, and then we were like, ‘Oh no, we can go for the pin for the extra points.’ So far we haven’t put it to the test really. I guess it’s when we’re down two or up two, that gets interesting,” she said.
Rycroft called out the seven ends as the most unusual part.
“It’s actually confused us all because you got to remind yourself all the time. All of a sudden, [it’s like], ‘Holy heck, the game’s over,’” he said.
For Typhoon’s Niklas Edin and Shield’s Kerri Einarson, the thinking time has been a challenge — though in the opposite way that might be expected.
Both skips left an unusually large amount of time on the clock in their first matches.
“It’s serious on the ice, but it’s really fun off the ice. When you’re in that state of mind, you’ve got nothing to lose kind of thing, win or lose it’s always fun anyway. I just kinda felt like we played better because of it,” Edin said.
“Everyone was making shots and having fun and we were playing fast. We had so much time we could kinda start wasting time the last three ends.”
The pace of the games has prevented some interaction — Fleury said she barely spoke with regular teammate but Rock League competitor Emma Miskew when they faced off Monday, while Scotland’s Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie said the same.
“It’s so fast-paced that you don’t really have a whole lot of time, but it was nice to see [Miskew] in the house,” Fleury said.
Watch highlights of the Rock League match between Shield Curling Club and Northern United in Toronto.
Most players have said communication between new teammates has been fairly smooth. Jacobs and Fleury pointed out that loud music somewhat hindered them in their first match, but the volume was quickly turned down.
The potential for hog-line challenges has mostly been forgotten or ignored.
“I just hope no one uses it against me,” joked Whyte.
Those fans who have been in the crowd have carried plenty of enthusiasm, from wearing banana costumes (think “peeeeel!” in curling lingo) to premeditated Typhoon and Northern chants.
Meanwhile, curlers have lingered around before and after their own games — like Homan taking a peek at Miskew’s first match, or the entire Northern team hanging out at the rinkside bar after its opener.
Yet on the ice, it’s all business.
“Even the flip of the coin for the hammer,” Rycroft said. “You gotta pick two hammers, so somebody doesn’t get a hammer. So there’s just always all these little things that really make you think, which is good. You don’t want to be out there just going through the motions.”



