Rock League looks to keep rolling after successful inaugural season

Nic Sulsky, Rock League’s CEO, uses plenty of metaphors to describe the first season of his curling venture.

It’s a baby that was born and has begun to run, and now must go train, if you’re interested in some hilarious imagery. It’s a car that’s been taken for a test drive, and now needs some “real gas into the engine.”

Or, perhaps, it’s a curling match unto itself.

“We're probably in like the fifth rock of the first end. We're so early. For some of these people out there to say they know it’s going to work or know it’s not going to work, it’s like, ‘No, no, no.’ But we have something here and now let's rally behind this thing and let's build it to where we think we can get it to because that's only going to benefit the sport of curling,” Sulsky said.

“And if you love curling, truly, how could you not like what we just pulled off? Because it was fun, man. And it ended on a draw-to-the-button shootout, like, come on. It was so fun. Holy moly.”

The Brad Jacobs-led Shield Curling Club won the inaugural championship in a match that came down to extra time in mixed doubles, with Switzerland’s Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel emerging as the hero.

Sulsky did not specify how many ends his metaphorical curling match would hold, whether it was 10 like tradition says, eight like mixed doubles or seven like Rock League.

But he did say he could envision the 2034 Olympics in Salt Lake City being curling’s “big moment,” and if we work backwards from there, then skip stones will be thrown in the fully realized five-week Rock League season next year, and one end per year after that would make 2034 the eighth end — a reasonable compromise between tradition and disruption.

“Do I think we've proved that curling has potential to be a