EN 
DE 
Brad Jacobs and Bruce Mouat had just finished an intense Olympic gold-medal game rematch, but their work wasn’t done. After Jacobs’ Shield Curling Club edged Mouat’s Northern United 5-4 with a last-end two-point score on Tuesday at Rock League, the two teams quickly moved to the nearby sheet. There, a crucial women’s match between Shield’s Kerri Einarson and Northern’s Isabella Wranå was unfolding.
Twelve curlers from both squads, along with their general managers, gathered on Sheet C at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. Mouat offered guidance to Wranå, while Jacobs watched from a distance, letting Einarson make her moves as her thinking time dwindled below one minute.
In a dramatic finish, Wranå’s last rock scored three points, securing Northern a 5-4 victory and a 2-1 overall match win, aided by a 9-6 success in mixed doubles. Northern’s team, made up of players from across Europe, celebrated with a howl in homage to their wolf logo.
This is the kind of competitive yet spirited environment that Nic Sulsky, CEO of The Curling Group, envisioned for Rock League. “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.”
While Rock League has had some hiccups over its first two days—video scoreboard glitches and low attendance—the league expects sellouts as the week progresses. Even the in-arena announcer stumbled on a coin toss call between Mouat and Rachel Homan, causing brief confusion.
Despite these early issues, the week-long Rock League preview is proving the concept is viable. Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg praised the dynamic. “It’s so cool when you put a lot of athletes together and you see different sides of everyone,” she 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.”
A few notable rule changes set Rock League apart from traditional bonspiels. Four-person games are just seven ends long, with roughly 80 percent of usual thinking time allotted. Uniquely, a stone covering the pinhole in the final end is valued at two points.
Rycroft, who won Olympic silver in 2002 with Kevin Martin, has taken on a more hands-on role than anticipated, managing the action across three sheets. Interestingly, no in-game lineup changes have happened yet, another twist in this format.
Players often steal quick looks at other sheets during matches but remain focused until the final rock. Shield’s Tracy Fleury noted adapting to the two-point pinhole rule has been the biggest change. Jacobs capitalized on it to defeat Mouat in the most consequential use of the rule so far.
“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 Tuesday’s afternoon draw, Maple United beat Typhoon Curling Club 2-1, with Canadian mixed-doubles stars winning 11-5 and Ross Whyte’s men’s team taking a 6-3 victory. Maple’s Rachel Homan edged out 6-5 by Hasselborg in the women’s game. After play, Maple United, Shield, Typhoon, and Alpine stood tied at 1-1 while Frontier trailed at 0-2.
Hasselborg admitted she forgot about the two-point pinhole rule until her last rock was halfway there, settling for a single point that sealed her win against Homan. “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 the shortened seven-end games the most unusual element. “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 explained.
For Typhoon’s Niklas Edin and Shield’s Kerri Einarson, the stricter thinking time has posed a different kind of challenge — neither used all their allotted time in their opening 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 fast pace has limited interaction between players. Fleury said she barely spoke with longtime teammate Emma Miskew when they faced off, while Scotland’s Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie shared a similar experience. “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 added.
Most players reported smooth communication with new teammates. Jacobs and Fleury noted loud music hampered them initially but organizers quickly adjusted the volume. The possibility of hog-line challenges has largely been ignored—a relief to Ross Whyte, who joked, “I just hope no one uses it against me.”
Fans in attendance have brought energy, donning banana costumes and organizing chants for Typhoon and Northern United. Meanwhile, curlers have socialized off the ice, with Homan watching Miskew’s match and Northern’s team hanging out around the rinkside bar after their opener.
But once on the ice, it’s all business. Rycroft said even the coin toss for the hammer requires thoughtfulness. “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.”