Curling rules: How do you play curling?

With the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, approaching, we take a look at how you can better enjoy curling.

Curling is a relatively complicated sport, rule-wise, but an easy one when it comes to watching. Essentially, the teams are attempting to get closest to the middle of “the house” which is the target on each end of the ice.

That’s the easy part.

The difficult rules are more so the specifics and violations pertaining to hog lines and tee lines. The match is made up of two teams of four players — or in the case of mixed doubles, teams consist of just one male and one female player. Each player gets two chances to slide the stones down the ice in an attempt to get closest to the “tee” which is the middle circle of the house.

Basic rules

Each team alternates throws and usually the team that throws last has the advantage because the final stone could knock all opposing rocks from the house.

With each team alternating throws, there are two sweepers and one other teammate calling out orders. The sweeping is meant to speed up the stone by ridding the ice in front of it of debris which may slow it down. Any opposing rock they accidentally hit by the sweepers, not the rock, will be replaced and the thrown rock will be removed.

Also, the thrower may not pass the “hog line” while still touching the stone. If he does, that stone is removed from play.

Players are also allowed to sweep stones set in motion by other stones — meaning stones that are struck by the one in motion in the house.

Scoring is based on whose stones are closest to the tee. A perfect eight points in a round is rare, but possible. Essentially, if a team gets all eight stones in the house while the opponent has zero, that’s how you get eight points.

However, points are rewarded to the team closes to the tee and all the other stones from that winning team closer to the tee than the opponent. For example, if one team wins the “end” — which is essentially a round and there are 10 in a normal match — and they have three stones closer to the tee than the opponent, they get three points.

At the finale of the 10-end match, the points are added up to decide the winner.

Next: Olympics 2018 schedule: When can you watch curling?

Overall, curling can be a complicated sport to follow if you don’t know the rules, but it’s relatively easy to follow once you get the gist of it.