Northern United early leader in curling’s Rock League

By Canadian Press on April 7, 2026.

TORONTO — Northern United, captained by Scotland’s Bruce Mouat, won a second game in a row to lead curling’s Rock League on Tuesday.

Northern United beat Shield, captained by Canada’s Brad Jacobs, 2-1 in their match to top the six-team standings at 2-0.

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 advisers.

The inaugural event at Toronto’s 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, and 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 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.

Northern United was victorious in both women’s team and mixed doubles to take their match against Shield, with Jacobs skipping the men’s team to victory for Shield.

Maple United, captained by Canada’s Olympic bronze medallist Homan, Shield, Typhoon and Alpine were all tied at 1-1 ahead of Frontier at 0-2.

Maple’s Canadian mixed doubles duo of Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman were 11-5 winners over Typhoon and the men’s team skipped by Scotland’s Ross Whyte was also victorious. Homan fell 6-5 to Anna Hasselborg skipping the Typhoon women.

Alpine picked up its first win Tuesday evening when it prevailed in mixed doubles and men’s fours, but lost in women’s curling.