How to watch curling (and actually know what’s going on)

Whether you hit up your local curling club once for a birthday party five years ago, or you think it’s just shuffleboard on ice (why is it called “curling” anyway?), we’ll walk you through the basics for the men’s and women’s team events at the Winter Games. While mixed doubles has two players instead of four and fewer rounds of play, they follow the same format.

Four team members work together to move stones across a long sheet of ice. The shooter “throws” the stones, pushing them from one end of the sheet toward the “house,” a series of circles at the opposite end, aiming for as many stones as possible to land near the center, called the “button.”

Two sweepers move with the stone and use brooms to adjust speed and direction. The skip directs play from the far end of the sheet with commands and signals, like a catcher calling a pitch.

The sheet, a 150-foot-long lane of ice, has a pebbly surface rather than a smooth one, achieved by misting water over fresh ice. Throughout a game, players pay attention to evolving ice conditions to estimate how fast or slow a stone will travel or turn.

Also called rocks, the stones are about 44 pounds of granite quarried in Scotland. The stone’s “running surface,” or bottom surface, is cleaned and sanded to the players’ preference to control for speed and the amount of curl. Stones are numbered 1 through 8 but can be thrown in any order based on the unique characteristics of the rock.

A truly straight path down the ice is impossible, so putting purposeful spin, or curl, on the stone allows for more control — hence the name “curling.” The faster a rock moves down the ice, the less it curls. Slower speeds mean it will curl more.

The striking band around the middle takes hits during play. A stone is “burned” if anything touches it as it moves down the sheet — but it’s often the decision of the opposing team whether to keep it in play or remove it.

Curling shoes are unique in that the left and right shoes have different soles. The sliding shoe usually has a Teflon sole to glide over the ice, whereas the other shoe often contains rubber for traction.

The closest stones to the button score for that team only. The other team’s stones are disregarded. Only stones inside the house are viable for scoring.

Each “end,” or round of play, sees 16 stones thrown — eight from each team — but the number of points is typically less than three, and there are often “blank ends,” in which neither team scores a point.

Team events have 10 ends, while mixed doubles has eight. The team with the most points in total wins the match.

Offense and defense can seem counterintuitive, but teams think at least one move ahead for placement, much like chess, said Tyler George, a member of the 2018 gold medal U.S. men’s curling team. Throwing a stone into the house first can be seen as a defensive move, he said, while putting a stone in the “guard” area in front of the house can be a strategic offense.

A “double takeout” can occur when a stone knocks two of the opponent’s rocks out of the house in one fell swoop.

The most important shot in the game is the last, called the “hammer.” It can — and often does — dramatically change the outcome of a game, George said.

A short pre-match competition — called the “Last Stone Draw” — determines which team starts with the hammer. From there, the team that loses an end receive the hammer in the next end. In the case of a scoreless end, the team that had the hammer retains it for the next end.