Eight Ends: Fun facts and stats from Rock League’s debut season

We've sifted through the numbers to present to you the most interesting facts and stats from Rock League's debut season.

First End: The lower seed won every playoff match. 

This is one of those facts that probably sounds more impressive than it actually is when you stop and think about it since we’re only talking about three playoff matches and the rosters were fairly balanced. Nevertheless, how often do you see a bracket completely bust?

No. 3 Typhoon Curling Club beat No. 2 Northern United and No. 4 Shield Curling Club "upset" No. 1 Alpine Curling Club in the semifinals, then Shield topped Typhoon in the final for the championship. 

Let’s also remember that Shield was in first place in the standings after the round robin and slipped to fourth following the mixed fours stage. This might sound like I’m continuing to sabotage this fun fact but there’s one more twist to all of this worth exploring.

During the round robin, a coin flip determined which franchise started with the hammer in the mixed doubles game and their choice of either the men's fours game or women's four game. For the playoffs, there was no coin flip. Instead, the higher-seeded franchise received the hammer for mixed doubles and one of the fours games.

You would think this would stack the deck in favour of the higher seed, particularly in mixed doubles where we saw 12 of the 15 teams that started with the hammer win their games in the round robin. During the playoffs though? Strikeout! Mixed doubles teams that started with the hammer went 0 for 3 in the win column.

Second End: Heads or tails? The franchise that won the coin toss went on to win the match in nine out of 15 instances.

Shield won the coin toss just once, in the inaugural Rock League match against Alpine, leading to a 2-1 victory.

Alpine also won the coin toss a single time and made the most of it, sweeping Northern 3-0. This is something that stands out with a small sample size, but Alpine had more wins after losing the coin toss (two) than winning it (one). 

Northern and Typhoon won the most coin tosses with four each, and both franchises posted 3-1 records in those matches. 

Frontier (1-2) and Maple (0-2) had the worst records after winning the coin toss. 

Maple must have been cursed by Danhausen during its match against Shield. Although Maple won the coin toss (very nice), Shield pulled off a 3-0 sweep (very evil).

Third End: Oh, we’re not done with the Maple vs. Shield match yet as there’s one other quirk worth noting about that one. 

Of the three sweeps that took place during the round robin, this was the only one where all three games ended in regulation. Let’s call that a “clean” sweep. 

The other two — Alpine over Northern and Northern over Typhoon — required a draw-to-the-button shootout in one of their games to get the job done. 

Fourth End: OK, how about a positive fun fact for Maple, the only franchise to complete a 2-0 sweep during the mixed fours stage, and against Shield no less. 

The other two mixed fours matches (Alpine vs. Frontier and Northern vs. Typhoon) were both 1-1 splits, with the teams starting with the hammer winning their games.

That warrants some extra kudos to Maple's Mike McEwen as he was the only skip to win a mixed fours game without the hammer to start. 

Fifth End: When Shield and Typhoon were on the ice, you could bet it would be a high-scoring affair. 

Shield and Typhoon combined to score 45 points across their games during the round robin, the most among all matches in Rock League’s debut season. 

The second-highest total? That also belongs to Shield and Typhoon as they combined to score 42 points in the final. 

Sixth End: Rock League carried over a rule for the men’s, women’s and mixed fours games that was introduced during the Grand Slam of Curling this season where teams could blank just once per game. If a team committed a second blank, they would lose the hammer for the following end. 

There were 10 blank ends total across the 42 fours games. Eight of the blanks occurred during an even end. This makes sense for two reasons: 1) There were an odd number of ends in the games, seven total, so blanking an even end would help keep things on track for that team to keep the hammer for the final end, and 2) The two-point pin bonus in the seventh end was too tantalizing for teams to pass up or simply prevent their opponent from having that opportunity.

There were zero games where both teams blanked an end. 

There actually was a blank in the seventh end, taking place in the women’s game between Alpine and Northern. Alpine has the last rock coming home leading 4-3, but Northern was sitting two in the house, including shot rock partially blocked by a guard. Alpine skip Alina Pätz opted for the slash double to clear the house. 

Seventh End: There was one blank end across the 18 mixed doubles games. 

Blanks are rare in mixed doubles since it’s baked into the rules that a blank leads to a loss of hammer for the following end. So, how did this happen? 

This is one of those things that could happen only in the final end and only in Rock League. Since total points counted toward potential tiebreakers, teams were encouraged to play even if the outcome was already mathematically determined.

That brings us to Match 14 with Typhoon’s Tori Koana and Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi facing Alpine’s Sofia Scharback and Oskar Eriksson. Typhoon was down to its last rock of the eighth end with the hammer, up by three, with Alpine sitting two in the house. Koana opted for a double takeout, with her shooter rolling out of the house as well.  

Strange but true: Scharback was involved in both of the last end blanks as she threw lead stones for Alpine’s women’s team during the game against Northern.

Eighth End: Another rule change implemented in the Grand Slam of Curling this season that made its way over to Rock League was replacing extra ends with draw-to-the-button shootouts. Although the Grand Slam of Curling scaled it back to the preliminary round, shootouts were in place for all stages in Rock League should games remain tied after regulation. That includes the final, which just so happened come down to a shootout to determine the champion.

During the previous two GSOC seasons, the team with the hammer won 84.8 per cent of the time in the extra end. The team that would have had the hammer still gets to choose whether to throw first or second in the shootout, but the win percentage dropped this season to 50 per cent.

Of the seven shootouts in Rock League, the team with the hammer won only three times (42.9 per cent). 

Three of the shootouts took place in mixed doubles, two in the women’s fours and one each in men’s fours and mixed fours. 

All six franchises competed in at least one shootout, with Northern appearing in the most at four (1-3 record). 

Frontier’s teams were 2-0 in shootouts, winning both games without the hammer advantage. 

Shield went 1-2 in shootouts, losing both with the hammer advantage, but winning the one in the final without.