Shield Curling Club wins inaugural Rock League championship

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

After Anna Hasselborg helped Typhoon win the women’s game 7-5, and Shield captain Brad Jacobs skipped his men’s squad to an 8-7 win on the men’s side, it all came down to the mixed doubles to decide the title — and in a draw-to-the-button shootout no less. 

Tori Koana went first for Typhoon, with her shooter rolling deep to the back of the eight-foot circle. Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel made no mistake on his draw, as “Mr. Tee” placed it right on the button for fun. 

"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."

Shield Curling Club cashed in $100,000 USD from the prize purse, with Schwarz-van Berkel earning the Rock League MVP award, voted by the Rock League commentators, to bank a $5,000 bonus. 

Not bad for someone who wasn’t even on Shield Curling Club’s lineup when rosters were announced in December. Schwarz-van Berkel was selected as a late replacement last month.

"The irony, right?" Schwarz-van Berkel said with a smile. "The recognition from the crew is something I will remember. It means a lot, of course. I truly acknowledge, and I truly appreciate the recognition for sure."

The all-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 made its debut with a condensed one-week season, with a five-week schedule planned for 2027.

"There's a lot on the line today and both teams knew that. Both franchises knew that," Jacobs said. "I think for myself, I brought more intensity to this game than I brought to any other game all week, and I think the entire team did that as well because we wanted to win. We wanted to be crowned champions and be the first ones to win in this league, so our theme of going into today was let's just empty the tank.

"I think we did do that. We knew that at the end of today we had 14 ends in us. We were going to be tired by the end, and it's great to be tired and to be a winner."

Jacobs was flanked by third Amos Mosaner, second Jake Horgan and lead Dan Marsh. Kerri Einarson skipped the women’s team with third Tracy Fleury, second Agnes Knochenhauer and lead Carole Howald. Marlee Powers joined Schwarz-van Berkel on the mixed doubles lineup. Carter Rycroft served as the franchise’s general manager.

"You know what? They made it really easy. I think one of the strengths of this entire squad, like all 11 of us, is we've got really great people on this team," Jacobs said. "I think everyone's very cooperative, genuinely good people.

"When you combine that with the athleticism, the hard work everyone puts in, and just seeing the personalities and everyone getting along really well, I wasn't surprised to see that we were doing well this week, and I'm not surprised to see us come out with the win because of that." 

Chinami Yoshida captained Typhoon’s franchise and threw second on the women’s team with Hasselborg, third Min-ji Kim and lead Ye-eun Seol. Edin skipped the men’s team with third Bobby Lammie, second Dexin Ba and lead Anton Hood. Koana paired up with Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi for mixed doubles. J.D. Lind was the GM. 

Einarson opened with the hammer in the women’s game and converted for a deuce, but Hasselborg capitalized on a Shield miss in the second to score three and never relinquished the lead. 

After Einarson was forced to one in the third, Hasselborg drew for two in the fourth to hold a 5-3 advantage. Einarson was held to another lone point in five, however, Hasselborg opted to give up a tying single in six to take the hammer coming home, where she scored two for the win.

Meanwhile, Edin had the hammer to start the men’s game but gave up a huge steal of three in the first when his runback missed everything.

The eight-time world champ was never able to fully erase the deficit as things went from bad to worse in the third when his angle raise went sideways to surrender two more points to slip away 5-0. 

Edin scored a deuce in the fourth to break the shutout, but he hit and rolled out on his last in the fifth, giving Jacobs an open draw for three more points and an 8-2 hold. 

Although Edin drew for three in the sixth, a steal of three in the seventh wasn’t in the cards, as Jacobs conceded two points on the board to lock down the victory. 

"Honestly, going into that game, I was 100 per cent confident we were going to win that game," Jacobs said. "We beat Niklas a million times in the last two years. I just felt like we had a better squad than them.

"We just had to go out and play like we could and prove that, and we did, so I felt really comfortable going into that game and throughout the entire thing."

The mixed doubles game looked like it would be the decider from the start with singles back and forth through the first three ends and Typhoon up 2-1. Powers hit for two in the fourth, but Koana breezed through the port to connect on a hit for three in the fifth and a 5-3 lead. 

After Shield took two in the sixth to tie it, Powers made an interesting call in the seventh by taking out her own stone in the house and giving Koana a draw for a deuce.

That put Typhoon up 7-5, but gave Shield the hammer coming home and the potential to score a two-point bonus by covering the pin. Shield did just that early in the eighth, but Powers didn’t have a shot on her last to get more than the tying two points and set up the electric ending.

Earlier Sunday, Typhoon defeated Northern United and Shield upended top-seeded Alpine Curling Club in the semifinals. Alpine captain Alina Pätz won the Ultimate Competitor award (as selected by the players) and received a $5,000 bonus.