Curling

Curling involves the physical curling of a round glass stone to either win a game of curling or draw one’s shot stone, or the equivalent in ice hockey terms. A group of eight men play against each other in a variety of positions, ranging from skip (skipper), vice skip, vice, second, lead, alternate, sweeper and an occasional substitute.

It’s a game that you can relate to if you can imagine a rock shaped like a pinball and curled around the sheet of ice at an ice rink. At times in the game it can be a little more tricky as you have to manoeuvre around the other players who are not as adept at curling as you are and there is some squirming of one’s position as you try to gain a lead of ten stones or so.

And as if you didn’t have enough curling to get a workout in, there are also ski-curling and ice-curling competitions, where you try to curl a rock on ice and receive a direct hit or curve from a metal puck that is bounced off of an ice sheet by a metal cow named “Foley”. These sports are more common at the Olympics.

Ice Curling at the Olympics

Ice curling will be a sport that you can enjoy in the 2021 Winter Olympics that will be held in Beijing, China. Although ice curling is a part of the winter Olympics, it doesn’t have a predetermined schedule in a season as there is in curling. In the winter it can also be considered a sport that can be played by anyone regardless of age.

There are 30 ice curling teams in Canada that are eligible to compete at the Olympics. Their teams are split into two separate groups; men’s and women’s.

Men’s Curling at the Olympics

The qualifying criteria for the men’s curling team is to have won the Canadian Curling Association Championship (known as the Brier). The most successful curling team in history are the last Canadian men’s team to win the Olympic gold medal at the 2021 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

This was the first time that curling has been played at the Olympics. Two teams are chosen from each of the 10 Canadian provinces and 3 regions. In the qualifying tournaments, they compete for the chance to represent Canada in the Winter Olympics and qualify for the Olympic Games.

Men’s Ice Curling at the Olympics

In ice curling, there are three events: men’s, women’s, and mixed. In the women’s and mixed curling, the players are divided into teams of two men and one woman. Each team has three stones that are curling around a sheet of ice that is coated with about four inches of ice in order to create an ice surface that has a level surface.

When a stone is curling, the edge is curled around the ice by the player to create a curl or spiral. In ice curling, the stone is designed to get on the button and for a draw stone, the stone is placed in the corner of the circle that is created.

Mixed Curling at the Olympics

Mixed curling will also be a sport in the Olympics in the 2021 Winter Olympics. In mixed curling, one of the curling stones is used in a rotation of two, while the other is used as the shot stone. The players on the mixed curling teams are allowed to curl one stone and either receive a direct hit or they can curl it themselves.

There are two types of ice curling, recreational ice curling and competitive ice curling. Recreational ice curling is where one can curl in a curling rink with one or more other curling teams. This type of ice curling does not carry a national sanction as there are no official teams in Canada.

The competitive ice curling is a sport where a person can curl on the same team as their family or friends. For competitive ice curling, teams consist of nine people in total that can compete against each other to determine the winner. In ice curling competitions, there are typically one women’s and one men’s team that play. At this point, there is a tie on the tie-breaker which is decided on by a coin flip.

So if you ever get a chance to curl ice in a curling rink and you want to try out ice curling, give it a go! You might like it!

Curling is a sport that is played on ice, with two members on each team using brooms to sweep the ice with stones to create sheets of ice called the ‘broom boxes’. There are ten different curling positions, known as ‘classes’, that you can perform while playing the sport, though there is one exception in that all players must have at least one stone ‘in play’ before the end of the tenth position.

Once you move to a tenth position, you sweep with a broom until you find yourself on an ‘edge’, which is usually placed directly across from the curling stone. You may do this in any order and you must throw the stone closest to the end of the stone box. If you don’t make the end of the rock box on the last throw of the match, then the next throw will start from the very end of the tenth position. The two members of the curling team will curl to within a stone’s throw of the stone that is ‘in play’ once the opposite team has been awarded the end of the rock box. The stone is then dropped into the ‘house,’ and the game is over when one of the curling team’s two stones crosses behind the opposing team’s stone.

You may do this over and over and over again for several hours and even days until the end of the game. The scoring works like this when you’re doing it: You earn ten points for every half-dozen sweeps you complete, and the curling team earns ten points for every rock tossed. So, if you throw a stone into an opposing team’s house, your team will score 10 points and your opponents will score zero.

Once you get past the first few strokes of play, the goal for each team is to keep their stone in play, and if you do, you gain points. Once you have the last stone in play, the scoring goes like this: If your opponent’s stone is tied or less than 10 points, your team keeps the rock. If you have 15 or more points, the opposing team loses the game.

While this is a simplified explanation of the game of curling, the following are the main rules that most curling matches follow: Each game has four corners (five if you include the ‘play-offs’). You have to have at least one stone ‘in play’ before the end of each set of ten strokes, and if you don’t, then the next throw is treated as the tenth stroke of the entire game. You can’t add more than 10 points during a set of ten strokes.

Using these basic rules, you may play a number of matches until you score enough points to win the match. If you score zero points in your set, you will lose a match.

Play-offs

There are two additional play-off systems, each of which is used to resolve draws after six complete ends (10 ends for men and eight ends for women). The play-offs are based on these basic rules: If you have 15 or more points at the end of 10 shots, you keep the game; if you have 10 points, the opponent loses a match.

Play-offs don’t just determine the winner of a match; they also determine which player will become the regular skip of the next curling match in the round-robin format. As a result, the skip of the curling team that won the previous round becomes the’regular’ skip of that set of the following match, and whomever wins the next set of play-offs becomes the regular skip of the match, even if the regular skip was defeated during the previous set. The players of the remaining curling team may be told after each set of play-offs that they will alternate as skip for the next match, but they cannot say that the other team is their opponent. This is probably the simplest way to settle the score between two teams.

Try Curling Today

You may try out curling for free by trying out the sport at the Community Curling Centre or at one of the 18 curling clubs in the province of Saskatchewan. Check the local curling clubs’ websites for contact information and instructions.

Oh, and don’t forget the curling brooms…

We made a reference to curling brooms above. If you need a new curling broom, check out these great curling brooms:

The type that you are used to seeing in curling is not the only type that is available, and you may be able to find something closer to a maple leaf handle. If you are looking for a new curling broom, make sure that you do your homework and check out the products of a few reputable curling retailers to find the perfect broom for you.

Practice Curling Today

If you want to try out curling for the first time, but don’t want to take the whole family (or a friend who hasn’t curled in a while), try a short two-hour clinic at a curling club. It’s a great way to test the waters to see if you like curling, without getting too carried away. Take along a friend and try out a full game and then you can decide whether you want to commit to a season of play.