Rock League debuts in Toronto with three matches

The Rock League launched Monday in Toronto with a bar right next to a curling sheet and frenemies as teammates.

The Rock League is a new event from The Curling Group, which also owns the Grand Slam series and has Olympic gold medallists John Morris and Jennifer Jones as its strategic advisors.

The inaugural event at the Mattamy Athletic Centre runs until Sunday. The competition offers US$250,000 in prize money, with $100,000 going to the winning team.

The format draws elements from golf’s Ryder Cup, as well as the Continental Cup of Curling that ran from 2002 to 2020, which pitted North America against other regions.

But each of the Rock League’s six franchise teams blends five men and five women from different countries to compete in four-player men’s and women’s matches, as well as mixed doubles.

Teams include Canadians such as Brad Jacobs, Rachel Homan and Kerri Einarson as well as international curlers from Sweden, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, South Korea, New Zealand and the United States.

Each team goes head-to-head against another across three ice sheets simultaneously in men’s and women’s team games and mixed doubles. A team wins by winning two of the three matches.

There is a mixed fours day Saturday. The top four teams advance to Sunday’s playoffs.

Each franchise has a general manager who determines curler deployment and can roam between ice sheets during games, as well as a team captain.

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Jacobs is the captain for Shield Curling Club. Olympic bronze medallist Homan is Maple United’s captain.

Shield won Monday’s opening round 2-1 over Alpine.

Jacobs was a 9-4 winner in men’s team curling, and the Swiss mixed doubles squad of Carole Howald and Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel won 6-4 over Alpine’s Almida De Valde and Oskar Eriksson of Sweden.

Alpine’s lone victory was in women’s team curling, skipped by Switzerland’s Alina Paetz, who defeated Shield skipped by Canada’s Einarson 8-4.

Jacobs skipped a team of Amos Mosaner (Italy) and Canadians Jacob Horgan and Dan Marsh against Joel Retornaz (Italy), Marc Muskatewitz (Germany), Sven Michel (Switzerland) and Hammy MacMillan Jr. (Scotland).

Shield’s Einarson held the broom for fellow Canadians Tracy Fleury and Marlee Powers and Sweden’s Agnes Knochenhauer against Alpine’s Paetz and Selina Gafner (Switzerland), Emma Miskew (Canada) and Sofia Scharback (Sweden).

Typhoon, featuring decorated Swedish skips Niklas Edin and Anna Hasselborg, defeated Frontier 2-1 in Monday’s second draw. Typhoon won the men’s game 7-3 and mixed doubles 10-3. Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni skipped Frontier’s women to a 7-3 win.

Northern, captained by Scotland’s Bruce Mouat, edged Maple 2-1 in the evening draw, winning 8-4 in men’s and 5-4 in mixed doubles. Homan skipped Maple to a 9-4 victory in the women’s game.

Rock League four-player games are seven ends with 21 minutes of playing time. Each team gets three timeouts of one minute each. A team drawing the pin in the seventh end is awarded a bonus of two points.

Games are televised on CBC digital streaming and CBC Gem, as well as RockChannel.com. CBC will broadcast Sunday’s playoffs and final nationally.