Brad Jacobs and Bruce Mouat had just finished an intense Olympic gold-medal game rematch, but their work wasn\u2019t done. After Jacobs\u2019 Shield Curling Club edged Mouat\u2019s 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\u2019s match between Shield\u2019s Kerri Einarson and Northern\u2019s Isabella Wran\u00e5 was unfolding.<\/p>\n
Twelve curlers from both squads, along with their general managers, gathered on Sheet C at Toronto\u2019s Mattamy Athletic Centre. Mouat offered guidance to Wran\u00e5, while Jacobs watched from a distance, letting Einarson make her moves as her thinking time dwindled below one minute.<\/p>\n
In a dramatic finish, Wran\u00e5\u2019s 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\u2019s team, made up of players from across Europe, celebrated with a howl in homage to their wolf logo.<\/p>\n
This is the kind of competitive yet spirited environment that Nic Sulsky, CEO of The Curling Group, envisioned for Rock League. \u201cIt’s kind of organized chaos out there as far as GM,\u201d said Shield\u2019s Carter Rycroft. \u201cEspecially 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Rock League has had some hiccups over its first two days\u2014video scoreboard glitches and low attendance\u2014the 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.<\/p>\n
Despite these early issues, the week-long Rock League preview is proving the concept is viable. Sweden\u2019s Anna Hasselborg praised the dynamic. \u201cIt\u2019s so cool when you put a lot of athletes together and you see different sides of everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cI would say you see the competitive side for sure in these people in how they want to get better everywhere. I think it\u2019s competitive on the ice but definitely more social than normal around everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Players often steal quick looks at other sheets during matches but remain focused until the final rock. Shield\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just gotta adapt. It\u2019s 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,\u201d Fleury said.<\/p>\n
In Tuesday\u2019s afternoon draw, Maple United beat Typhoon Curling Club 2-1, with Canadian mixed-doubles stars winning 11-5 and Ross Whyte\u2019s men\u2019s team taking a 6-3 victory. Maple\u2019s Rachel Homan edged out 6-5 by Hasselborg in the women\u2019s game. After play, Maple United, Shield, Typhoon, and Alpine stood tied at 1-1 while Frontier trailed at 0-2.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cWhen I made my draw, we were just cleaning it, and then we were like, \u2018Oh no, we can go for the pin for the extra points.\u2019 So far we haven\u2019t put it to the test really. I guess it\u2019s when we\u2019re down two or up two, that gets interesting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Rycroft called the shortened seven-end games the most unusual element. \u201cIt\u2019s actually confused us all because you got to remind yourself all the time. All of a sudden, [it\u2019s like], \u2018Holy heck, the game’s over,\u2019\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
For Typhoon\u2019s Niklas Edin and Shield\u2019s Kerri Einarson, the stricter thinking time has posed a different kind of challenge \u2014 neither used all their allotted time in their opening matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s serious on the ice, but it\u2019s really fun off the ice. When you\u2019re in that state of mind, you\u2019ve got nothing to lose kind of thing, win or lose it\u2019s always fun anyway. I just kinda felt like we played better because of it,\u201d Edin said. \u201cEveryone 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fast pace has limited interaction between players. Fleury said she barely spoke with longtime teammate Emma Miskew when they faced off, while Scotland\u2019s Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie shared a similar experience. \u201cIt\u2019s so fast-paced that you don\u2019t really have a whole lot of time, but it was nice to see [Miskew] in the house,\u201d Fleury added.<\/p>\n
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\u2014a relief to Ross Whyte, who joked, \u201cI just hope no one uses it against me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s match and Northern\u2019s team hanging out around the rinkside bar after their opener.<\/p>\n
But once on the ice, it\u2019s all business. Rycroft said even the coin toss for the hammer requires thoughtfulness. \u201cYou gotta pick two hammers, so somebody doesn\u2019t get a hammer. So there\u2019s just always all these little things that really make you think, which is good. You don\u2019t want to be out there just going through the motions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brad Jacobs and Bruce Mouat had just finished an intense Olympic gold-medal game rematch, but their work wasn\u2019t done. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","description":"","custom_seo_keywords":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curling","tag-rock-league"],"yoast_head":"\n