Curling Scoring

My first question from the blog is from the Lost Southerner....he asks "Is it played on time or points?"

(Thank you Lost Southerner....you when The Adam Award....prize to be determined.)

The answer is .....drum role please....."Both"....sort of.

For those of you new to curling, let me try to explain the basics: 

Curling is a team sport with teams being made up of 5 people, 4 people actually play and each throw 2 stones per "End" which is sort of like an inning in baseball.  The "fifth" is an alternate. The players positions are named for the order in which they throw their stones: Lead, Second, Third, and Skip.  The Skip is like the captain or the quaterback and normally throws the final stones and is in charge of team strategy.

The target area for the Stones is called "The House." It looks like a bullseye (or the logo for Target). Scoring occurs at the end of an End, when all 16 stones have been thrown; however many stones Team A has in the House closer to the center (which is called The Button) than Team B's nearest stone is how many points Team A scores.

In other words, it is scored like Bocce.   The rings in the House have nothing to do with scoring - they just help the players tell which stones are closer to the Button.

At the  Olympics, the teams will play 10 End games. 

Each team is timed as well. They have 75 minutes of playing time. If they don't deliver their final stones in the 10th end in less than those 75 minutes, they lose. (This rarely happens but it does keep teams from taking a ridiculous amount of time to play)

 
More to come....

Questions?


Score update:  The US is down 1 after the first End.