In The Rings: Change coming to curling scene with lineup moves and Rock League

The Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials did more than just determine this country’s representatives for the Winter Olympics. 

It also served as a valuable opportunity for up-and-coming players to get a taste of what it’s like to compete at curling’s biggest domestic competition of the quadrennial. 

Rachel Homan and Brad Jacobs skipped their teams to victory last November in Halifax and will wear the Maple Leaf at the upcoming Milan Cortina Games. For younger skips like Jordon McDonald, Kayla Skrlik, Rylan Kleiter and Selena Sturmay, it was a chance to play a high-profile event against some of the best teams in the country. 

That’s something that could pay off down the road, especially since Canada’s curling depth will be impacted with some members of the sport’s older guard planning to hang up their brooms. 

“Those (younger) teams I think got some really high-pressure, high-quality reps that is going to pay dividends for them in the future,” Curling Canada chief executive officer Nolan Thiessen said in a recent interview. “So with us, it’s not always just about the team that wins.

“There’s a lot of teams that are at various points of their competitive journey.”

Significant changes usually come to the curling scene at the end of the Olympic cycle and this quadrennial will be no different. 

The veteran-heavy men’s scene is expected to see more change than the women’s side since more retirements are likely. Top players like Brad Gushue and E.J. Harnden have said this will be their last competitive season and others are likely to follow.

The so-called free agency period in Canadian curling essentially begins once the Olympic teams are set. Even with a few months left in the campaign, players are starting to think about the four-year cycle ahead of the French Alps 2030 Games.

In a sport where there are no general managers to pull the strings, it usually means players engage in early conversations as teams consider how best to make changes or fill vacancies in a landscape that can change quickly.

Harnden said “it’s refreshing” to be on the other side of it this time around.

“Refreshing because I don’t have to worry about anything because I know what I’m doing,” he said with a laugh. “And so there’s no more of like, ‘I wonder what’s going to happen? Is so-and-so going to keep playing? And now I know so-and-so is changing teams and what does that mean for me?'”

Harnden’s retirement plan, announced last weekend, will leave the top-ranked Canadian men’s team skipped by Matt Dunstone without a second.

The departure of Gushue, who stated his retirement plans last fall, will leave Mark Nichols, Brendan Bottcher and Geoff Walker without a skip.

The dominoes will likely start to fall once Jacobs and teammates Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert — all in their early 40s — firm up future plans. Olympic gold might tempt them to go out on top while any other result could fuel the fire for another cycle.

The curling world is also anticipating the arrival of Rock League. The pro circuit from The Curling Group — which owns the Grand Slam of Curling series — is set to debut this spring after enduring a couple walkbacks in recent months. 

“I always think that when something big like that in curling happens, it can either go really well or really bad,” said Team Koe vice Tyler Tardi, who will play in Rock League. “And to be honest, I think that’s 100 per cent on those who are involved in it. 

“I think it’ll only really flop if the players and people involved let it.”

A planned six-week schedule for Rock League in 2026 has been trimmed to just seven days.

Plans to take the league to Europe this spring were quietly dropped last November. The development was buried in a GSOC website story that sung the praises of its first U.S.-based Grand Slam event in Lake Tahoe, Nev., and the international presence in the field.

The KIOTI GSOC Tahoe competition had strong viewership numbers on Sportsnet but was played in a virtually empty arena. Multiple messages left with The Curling Group requesting attendance figures and streaming viewership data weren’t returned.

Plans for a Rock League event in the United States in 2026 were dropped when Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre was recently confirmed as the lone stop (April 6-12) on the schedule. 

A four-week Rock League season is planned for 2027 with each event set to last four days. Canadian stops include Moose Jaw, Sask. (Jan. 7-10), Halifax (Jan. 14-17) and Ottawa (Feb. 4-7), with the lone U.S. stop set for Utica, N.Y. (Jan. 28-31). 

The host city for the April 8-18 playoffs has yet to be determined.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 31, 2025.