Shield Wins Inaugural Rock League Curling Title

With files from Rock League

Shield Curling Club captured the inaugural professional Rock League championship trophy after defeating Typhoon Curling Club with a thrilling 2-1 match victory in Sunday’s final at TMU Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto. 

After Anna Hasselborg helped Typhoon win the women’s fours game 7-5, and Shield captain Brad Jacobs skipped his men’s fours squad to an 8-7 win on the men’s side, it all came down to the mixed doubles match to decide the title, which went to a draw-to-the-button shootout.

Tori Koana of Japan went first for Typhoon, with her shooter sliding to the back of the eight-foot rings. Swiss Olympian Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel made no mistake on his draw, covering the pin to clinch. 

The Shield athletes cashed in U.S. $100,000 from the prize purse, with Schwarz-van Berkel earning the Rock League MVP award. 

“It’s really cool,” Schwarz-van Berkel said. “It’s amazing. I mean, when you win in a team, I think it's an even better feeling, honestly, I think in sports.

“I think that the good side of team sports is that when you win, you don’t do it for yourself, you do it for other people, so that’s something very cool and that’s what you get here at Rock League.”

The new professional curling league featured six franchises with five men’s players and five women’s players plus a general manager during its first season. Curlers competed in men’s fours, women’s fours and mixed doubles in round-robin play and the playoffs, plus mixed fours during Saturday’s seeding matches. 

Rock League’s debut was a condensed one-week season, and a five-week schedule is planned for 2027.

Earlier Sunday, Typhoon defeated Northern United and Shield upended top-seeded Alpine Curling Club in the semifinals. Alpine captain Alina Paetz won the Ultimate Competitor award.

Other Shield team members were Amos Mosaner (Italy), Jake Horgan and his sister Tracy Fleury (Sudbury, Ont.), Dan Marsh (Saskatoon), Kerri Einarson (Gimli, Man.), Agnes Knochenhauer (Sweden), Carole Howald (Switzerland) and Marlee Powers of Halifax. 

Carter Rycroft served as the franchise’s general manager.

“I didn’t actually think it would be this exciting and interactive,” said the 2002 Olympic finalist. 

“You’re walking around… and you’re engaged in three different sheets (of play). For the GM, you’re part of the team, part of the decision-making because it’s so fast, so you have to be on the ball.”

Japan’s Chinami Yoshida captained Typhoon’s franchise and threw second on the women’s team with Hasselborg and Korea’s Min-ji Kim and Ye-eun Seol. Sweden’s Niklas Edin skipped the men’s team with Scotland’s Bobby Lammie, Dexin Ba (China) and Anton Hood of New Zealand. 

Koana paired up with Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi for mixed doubles. J.D. Lind was the Typhoon GM. 

Typhoon advanced to Sunday’s final with a 2-0 morning semifinal win over Northern United, which was captained by Scotland’s Bruce Mouat with Norway’s Christoffer Svae the GM.

The other semi, played Sunday afternoon, saw Shield score a 2-0 combined win over Alpine Curling Club, which wad captained by Paetz with Scotland’s Eve Muirhead serving as GM.

Saturday’s playoff round saw play switch to full mixed team competition – two males and two females per team, playing modified seven-end matches.

That’s where Shield struggled. The franchise lost both games to Maple United – captained by Rachel Homan with Glenn Howard as GM – in its mixed fours match Saturday and dropped into the fourth and final playoff spot.

Frontier Curling Club was the other franchise in competition. Like Maple United, the U.S.-based team – with Duluth’s Korey Dropkin as captain and Chris Plys as GM – finished preliminary play with three combined points, failing to qualify for the top-four playoffs.

As The Curling News published last week, Rock League’s broadcast debut involved multiple streaming platforms across multiple nations, with CBC-TV also airing the playoff weekend in Canada.

Next season’s full league schedule begins in Jan. 2027 and includes stops in Ottawa, Halifax, Moose Jaw, Sask. and Utica, NY.