The 2018 Winter Olympics are upon us and if you’re interested in plugging into the world of curling, here’s how scoring works.
It’s almost that time again. With the 2018 Winter Olympics upon us, it’s time to divide our attention to different sports. One of the most popular sport in the games will be curling, which is much more popular in Canada than it is in the United States.
Although it’s not popular in the United States year-round, it’ll be a highly-anticipated event for many in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
The rules are slightly complex, but the gist of it is this: the team with the stone closest to the middle of the house, which is the four rings 12 feet in diameter arranged in a bulls-eye formation, wins the round, also called an “end”.
A regular match consists of 10 ends and the team with the most combined points at the end of that wins. Pretty simple, right?
Well, let’s go over the scoring rules.
Each team consists of four players, unless it’s a mixed doubles match which is one male and one female player on a team. The teams alternate throws and each player gets two tosses of the stone down the ice. The sweepers try and aim the stone closest to the center, sometimes knocking opponents’ stones out of the way and out of the “house” which is the bulls-eye on each end.
The goal is to get the stone closest to the “tee” which is the middle of the house. The team that has a stone closest to the tee wins that end. On top of that, any stone that team has which is closer to the tee than the opponents’ closest counts toward that end’s score as well.
For example, if a team wins an end and has two stones total closer to the tee than the opponents’ closest, that team gets two points.
Next: Olympics 2018 schedule: When can you watch curling?
Now that you know how scoring works, curling will be more enjoyable to watch in the 2018 Winter Olympics.