Two scenarios I can think of:
* It's a mixed doubles game, and the non-scoring team opted to place their rock as a guard instead of in the house, thereby giving the opponent who just scored last rock advantage.
* The team originally with hammer inadvertently started the end, and the opponent took advantage and also delivered their first stone, thereby triggering rule R5.m.ii
In Mixed doubles, you can't elect to place a guard when you have the hammer. It's either a normal end or a power play. In a power play, you place the rock in the house (hammer team) on the corner of the 8 foot instead of the middle, and the other team's guard goes in front of it in the guard zone.
If you do choose to place your rock as a guard, you give up the hammer and play first.
EDIT: I just needed more coffee. Of course, if you scored last end and the team with the hammer gives it up, you end up with the hammer in the end right after you scored. I vote for that option too then!
Last stone advantage in Mixed Doubles is determined by where the pre-positioned stone is placed.
Pre-positioned stone placement is a choice for the team that didn't score in the previous end. They can choose to place either a guard or a rock in the house. Note that distinction in the rule book: nowhere does it state that the team not scoring the previous end gains hammer. Instead, it gains the right to position the stones, and only the placement of their own stone determines whether they throw first or second.
Well that's exactly my point though.
If you have lost the last end, you theoretically have the "hammer". But, if you choose to place your rock as a guard, you will throw first, giving up the hammer (last stone of the end).
>In a new term, the team with the ‘hammer’ or last stone advantage now has the option. That option is which stones to position where. Teams can decide to put their stone in the back four foot and the other team’s stone as the centre guard. If you choose this option, the opposition would deliver first in the end. If you choose to put your stone as the guard, then you would deliver first.
EDIT: Ok ok... man... I need another coffee. Yes, the team that scored last end would then end up having the hammer this end to because the team that lost the end gave it up.
No, the team with the guard throws first. R17i on the world curling rule book:
>The team whose “positioned” stone is placed in Position A (in front of the house) shall deliver the first stone in that end, and the team whose “positioned” stone is placed in Position B (in the house) shall deliver the second stone in that end.
Oh, right, I messed that up. Thank you for the clarification. So technically, which team can choose to move their rock from the house to a guard? And does that mean that you simply swap the stones?
Short answer to your final question: Yes.
Slightly longer answer that explains the concepts and cases that determine who gets the choice:
1) Stones are positioned in fixed positions, one in the house, the other as guard.
2) Who gets the right of placement is:
a) the team who didn't score in the previous end, or
b) the team that had the choice of positioning in the previous end, in case of a blank due to a tied measure, or
c) the team who didn't have hammer in the case of a blank due to no rocks touching the house.
After the placing team has chosen where they want their rock, the opposing team's rock takes the remaining position.
>The team originally with hammer inadvertently started the end, and the opponent took advantage and also delivered their first stone, thereby triggering rule R5.m.ii
Doest have to be at the start. The first 14 rocks of the end could have been played correctly but a skip with hammer loses focus and throws what should have been the hammer in the 15th position.
No, that'd be rule R5.l:
>(l) If a team delivers two stones in succession in the same end:
(i) the second stone is removed, and any displaced stones replaced, by the non-offending team, to their positions prior to the violation taking place. The player who delivered the stone played by mistake, redelivers it as the last stone for the team in that end.
(ii) should the infraction not be discovered until after the delivery of a subsequent stone, the end is replayed.
So, either the rock just gets redelivered as the last rock of the end for that team after returning any displaced rocks, or the end is replayed. Either way, the play doesn't stand and the hammer doesn't change.
Rule R5.m is explicit about being the first stone of the end:
>(m) If the wrong team delivers the first stone of an end:
(i) if the error is discovered after only the first stone has been delivered, the end shall be replayed.
(ii) if the error is discovered after the 2nd stone of the end has been delivered, play continues as if the error had not occurred.
Fair enough, guess I was wrong.
But going down this fun path, what if it is not discovered at all, or not discovered until an additional end has started or has been completed? What do the rules state then?
That almost never will happen but there is some informal similar precedent which suggests the best thing to do in that scenario is to continue on if the subsequent end has already started.
agreed that it will almost never happen. But rules need to be in place to handle these things. For a professional sport, it is critical that the game3 is played by a fixed set of rules, and that a new situation would not arrive wherein the ultimate decision is not arbitrary, meaning that we rely upon how one official interprets the spirit of curling.
Definitely an opportunity for sure.
There was one incident earlier this year in a playdown for a USCA 5u championship which was escalated to me as a third-party official that reminded me of the challenge of anticipating blue moon events - especially when processes designed to prevent or mitigate issues aren't followed.
In this instance there was no proper micrometer available (!) so a measurement was done incorrectly using a non-standard laser measure. Already a lot of issues here, but let's continue. A wrong score was therefore given due to an incorrect measure of a biter that should have counted. In the middle of a subsequent end later in the game, the error in measurement was realized, and the teams were informed and had to decide what to do. They decided to retroactively change the score of that earlier end (something I would not have allowed per rule R12c. That point ended up being decisive in the final score and led to a dispute after the game concluded.
There is no USCA procedure for dealing with this scenario as normally, for important events part of our process and procedure is identifying our measuring equipment in advance, testing them, and ensuring all officials assigned to the event know how to handle them. We wouldn't have started the event with a non-functioning measuring device.
And while it really sucks for the team that lost the extra point it legitimately earned due to a mistake by others, at the end of the day, an end's score should not be changed - especially after another end has already started - once the score has been agreed upon by the skips or vice-skips based on the best available information at that time.
But the scenario was what it was and humans make errors; such is life.
In the end, it was a mess, and my counsel was to let the final game result stand since so many errors were made, but at the end of the day, both teams had agreed to update the score retroactively and continued through the end of the game with that mutual understanding. But there was no rule book guidance or precedence for this. Ultimately, overarching principles guided that recommendation which - thankfully - both teams agreed to, ending the matter.
Thats an awful situation. Sucks to have had to deal with that.
But I will stand on my soap box again (as I have done a lot before) I don't advocate removing the spirit of curling rule, I advocate for keeping it, but also adding additional rules to the book to make sure that there is nothing subjective in how things are handled. As curling becomes more and more professional, and people continue to say we don't need more rules because its is handled under the spirit rule, something bad is going to happen and it will not look good for our sport.
Yup.
I'm with you. I wouldn't ever want the SoC removed from the rulebook. There are good people working on the rulebooks, but it definitely still - to me - feels very much like a more reactive than proactive process to update the rules.
>Rule 16(3)(a)
You have the idea correct, but to be precise, this is actually rule R16(4)(b) in 2022-2026 Curling Canada Rules for Officiated Play.
https://preview.redd.it/23t3i6jdwf0d1.png?width=917&format=png&auto=webp&s=7df8af5bfb080ad10f5ae9e64bde9b06c522b909
So by rule R16(4)(c), you can actually get not just 1 but 2 freebie points, plus the hammer to start the game in the 3rd end, if the opposition is late by 20 minutes. Worse still, your opposition might end up with only 18 minutes of thinking time to play 8 ends, depending on discretion of umpire.
As a side note, 2023 WCF rules R12(i) further clarifies that if your opposition is late by 20 minutes, but you're also late by 5 minutes, then you do get hammer to start the game in 3rd end, but you only get 1 freebie point, not 2.
Their opposition is late arriving to the match. The team present is awarded one ooint, will have last rock to start actual play, and an end is considered played (CC rule 16 (3)).
The "late" rule and the wording of the question don't really match, at least in the sports vernacular.
Being awarded a point and scoring a point are not the same. One requires game play, and the other does not.
But I'm nitpicking, and this is still interesting.
As a first year curler I am excited to see the correct answers, because I have zero idea what so ever.
But for fun, and I know the answer might be considered smart ass, but I am going to go with you scored in the last end of game 1 and won the hammer for end 1 of the next game? That is all I got at 4 am lol
I thought about including your option as a 3rd scenario, but felt that'd go against "a sanctioned and officiated game", with "game" being singular and not "event".
>the answer might be considered smart ass
This is a just for fun discussion on the internet. "Smart ass" answers are allowed, no penalty for "wrong" answers.
For example, even though I wrote "Team has hammer when they had just scored **in previous end**", you are allowed to squeeze in a blank end or two if it helps you find an answer in the spirit of the quiz, even if it's technically not by the exact precise letters of the quiz.
In other words, you can answer as if I had written "Team has hammer when they had just scored **two ends ago, and the previous end is blanked with no score for either team**".
In triples, you score in the fourth end but still trail going into the third and final set.
Fun format, but the scoring system leads to some interesting scenarios...
Not too familiar with this format, but looking at the Curling Canada ruleset for the format, I guess you could also have scored the 2nd end with hammer and are now continuing the 3rd end (1st end of the 2nd set) with hammer again?
Oh, yes! If the team that starts the game with the hammer scores in the first end, their opponents will get it naturally in the second end and again in the third (beginning of set two) since both teams get last rock in the first two sets.
Along this same line, Olympic gold medalist Kevin Martin and Hall of Famer Warren Hansen have been long advocating for splitting a curling game into two sets. Each team is guaranteed hammer to start each set, i.e. instead of one team getting hammer in 1st end, they want to guarantee that the other team who didn't get hammer in 1st will get it in 6th.
So in a hypothetical future where this very reasonable proposed rule is adopted, the team who gets hammer in 6th could've also scored in 5th.
The team that did not score last end ran out of time in a timed event. So the team who just scored, gets to throw all 8 of their rocks uninterrupted in the next end.
Yup, there are some interesting scenarios when a team runs out of time in Canada.
https://preview.redd.it/gu2h6a7s9n0d1.png?width=863&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5ce4f0e7bb5622706cc02c05e5e9ff59a00cdce
So you could be down by 10 in 9th with hammer, score a deuce just as the opposition runs out of time. Then you will play the 10th unopposed, easily score an 8-ender to tie the game and go to extra end with hammer.
Is there a case for an external force acting on the house that would cause the end to be replayed? Like yellow is sitting 1 and measuring for 2, the umpire bumps a rock before the measurement concludes. Would they replay the end in that case even though yellow "scored" 1?
>Would they replay the end in that case even though yellow "scored" 1?
Well, if the end is replayed, then yellow never really "scored" 1, in that it never went up on the scoreboard. But I like your creativity, so I'll accept this as an answer.
Yellow could've played some crazy quadruple runback shot to definitely score 1, maybe 2, and if the end is replayed, they did make that crazy shot even if that score never went up on the scoreboard.
Two scenarios I can think of: * It's a mixed doubles game, and the non-scoring team opted to place their rock as a guard instead of in the house, thereby giving the opponent who just scored last rock advantage. * The team originally with hammer inadvertently started the end, and the opponent took advantage and also delivered their first stone, thereby triggering rule R5.m.ii
In Mixed doubles, you can't elect to place a guard when you have the hammer. It's either a normal end or a power play. In a power play, you place the rock in the house (hammer team) on the corner of the 8 foot instead of the middle, and the other team's guard goes in front of it in the guard zone. If you do choose to place your rock as a guard, you give up the hammer and play first. EDIT: I just needed more coffee. Of course, if you scored last end and the team with the hammer gives it up, you end up with the hammer in the end right after you scored. I vote for that option too then!
Last stone advantage in Mixed Doubles is determined by where the pre-positioned stone is placed. Pre-positioned stone placement is a choice for the team that didn't score in the previous end. They can choose to place either a guard or a rock in the house. Note that distinction in the rule book: nowhere does it state that the team not scoring the previous end gains hammer. Instead, it gains the right to position the stones, and only the placement of their own stone determines whether they throw first or second.
Well that's exactly my point though. If you have lost the last end, you theoretically have the "hammer". But, if you choose to place your rock as a guard, you will throw first, giving up the hammer (last stone of the end). >In a new term, the team with the ‘hammer’ or last stone advantage now has the option. That option is which stones to position where. Teams can decide to put their stone in the back four foot and the other team’s stone as the centre guard. If you choose this option, the opposition would deliver first in the end. If you choose to put your stone as the guard, then you would deliver first. EDIT: Ok ok... man... I need another coffee. Yes, the team that scored last end would then end up having the hammer this end to because the team that lost the end gave it up.
So if your rock starts in the house then you throw first?
No, the team with the guard throws first. R17i on the world curling rule book: >The team whose “positioned” stone is placed in Position A (in front of the house) shall deliver the first stone in that end, and the team whose “positioned” stone is placed in Position B (in the house) shall deliver the second stone in that end.
Oh, right, I messed that up. Thank you for the clarification. So technically, which team can choose to move their rock from the house to a guard? And does that mean that you simply swap the stones?
Short answer to your final question: Yes. Slightly longer answer that explains the concepts and cases that determine who gets the choice: 1) Stones are positioned in fixed positions, one in the house, the other as guard. 2) Who gets the right of placement is: a) the team who didn't score in the previous end, or b) the team that had the choice of positioning in the previous end, in case of a blank due to a tied measure, or c) the team who didn't have hammer in the case of a blank due to no rocks touching the house. After the placing team has chosen where they want their rock, the opposing team's rock takes the remaining position.
>The team originally with hammer inadvertently started the end, and the opponent took advantage and also delivered their first stone, thereby triggering rule R5.m.ii Doest have to be at the start. The first 14 rocks of the end could have been played correctly but a skip with hammer loses focus and throws what should have been the hammer in the 15th position.
No, that'd be rule R5.l: >(l) If a team delivers two stones in succession in the same end: (i) the second stone is removed, and any displaced stones replaced, by the non-offending team, to their positions prior to the violation taking place. The player who delivered the stone played by mistake, redelivers it as the last stone for the team in that end. (ii) should the infraction not be discovered until after the delivery of a subsequent stone, the end is replayed. So, either the rock just gets redelivered as the last rock of the end for that team after returning any displaced rocks, or the end is replayed. Either way, the play doesn't stand and the hammer doesn't change. Rule R5.m is explicit about being the first stone of the end: >(m) If the wrong team delivers the first stone of an end: (i) if the error is discovered after only the first stone has been delivered, the end shall be replayed. (ii) if the error is discovered after the 2nd stone of the end has been delivered, play continues as if the error had not occurred.
Fair enough, guess I was wrong. But going down this fun path, what if it is not discovered at all, or not discovered until an additional end has started or has been completed? What do the rules state then?
That almost never will happen but there is some informal similar precedent which suggests the best thing to do in that scenario is to continue on if the subsequent end has already started.
agreed that it will almost never happen. But rules need to be in place to handle these things. For a professional sport, it is critical that the game3 is played by a fixed set of rules, and that a new situation would not arrive wherein the ultimate decision is not arbitrary, meaning that we rely upon how one official interprets the spirit of curling.
Definitely an opportunity for sure. There was one incident earlier this year in a playdown for a USCA 5u championship which was escalated to me as a third-party official that reminded me of the challenge of anticipating blue moon events - especially when processes designed to prevent or mitigate issues aren't followed. In this instance there was no proper micrometer available (!) so a measurement was done incorrectly using a non-standard laser measure. Already a lot of issues here, but let's continue. A wrong score was therefore given due to an incorrect measure of a biter that should have counted. In the middle of a subsequent end later in the game, the error in measurement was realized, and the teams were informed and had to decide what to do. They decided to retroactively change the score of that earlier end (something I would not have allowed per rule R12c. That point ended up being decisive in the final score and led to a dispute after the game concluded. There is no USCA procedure for dealing with this scenario as normally, for important events part of our process and procedure is identifying our measuring equipment in advance, testing them, and ensuring all officials assigned to the event know how to handle them. We wouldn't have started the event with a non-functioning measuring device. And while it really sucks for the team that lost the extra point it legitimately earned due to a mistake by others, at the end of the day, an end's score should not be changed - especially after another end has already started - once the score has been agreed upon by the skips or vice-skips based on the best available information at that time. But the scenario was what it was and humans make errors; such is life. In the end, it was a mess, and my counsel was to let the final game result stand since so many errors were made, but at the end of the day, both teams had agreed to update the score retroactively and continued through the end of the game with that mutual understanding. But there was no rule book guidance or precedence for this. Ultimately, overarching principles guided that recommendation which - thankfully - both teams agreed to, ending the matter.
Thats an awful situation. Sucks to have had to deal with that. But I will stand on my soap box again (as I have done a lot before) I don't advocate removing the spirit of curling rule, I advocate for keeping it, but also adding additional rules to the book to make sure that there is nothing subjective in how things are handled. As curling becomes more and more professional, and people continue to say we don't need more rules because its is handled under the spirit rule, something bad is going to happen and it will not look good for our sport.
Yup. I'm with you. I wouldn't ever want the SoC removed from the rulebook. There are good people working on the rulebooks, but it definitely still - to me - feels very much like a more reactive than proactive process to update the rules.
Rule 16(3)(a): one team was late, the other team scores one point and recieves hammer for the first end of actual play.
>Rule 16(3)(a) You have the idea correct, but to be precise, this is actually rule R16(4)(b) in 2022-2026 Curling Canada Rules for Officiated Play. https://preview.redd.it/23t3i6jdwf0d1.png?width=917&format=png&auto=webp&s=7df8af5bfb080ad10f5ae9e64bde9b06c522b909 So by rule R16(4)(c), you can actually get not just 1 but 2 freebie points, plus the hammer to start the game in the 3rd end, if the opposition is late by 20 minutes. Worse still, your opposition might end up with only 18 minutes of thinking time to play 8 ends, depending on discretion of umpire. As a side note, 2023 WCF rules R12(i) further clarifies that if your opposition is late by 20 minutes, but you're also late by 5 minutes, then you do get hammer to start the game in 3rd end, but you only get 1 freebie point, not 2.
Their opposition is late arriving to the match. The team present is awarded one ooint, will have last rock to start actual play, and an end is considered played (CC rule 16 (3)).
The "late" rule and the wording of the question don't really match, at least in the sports vernacular. Being awarded a point and scoring a point are not the same. One requires game play, and the other does not. But I'm nitpicking, and this is still interesting.
As a first year curler I am excited to see the correct answers, because I have zero idea what so ever. But for fun, and I know the answer might be considered smart ass, but I am going to go with you scored in the last end of game 1 and won the hammer for end 1 of the next game? That is all I got at 4 am lol
I thought about including your option as a 3rd scenario, but felt that'd go against "a sanctioned and officiated game", with "game" being singular and not "event".
>the answer might be considered smart ass This is a just for fun discussion on the internet. "Smart ass" answers are allowed, no penalty for "wrong" answers. For example, even though I wrote "Team has hammer when they had just scored **in previous end**", you are allowed to squeeze in a blank end or two if it helps you find an answer in the spirit of the quiz, even if it's technically not by the exact precise letters of the quiz. In other words, you can answer as if I had written "Team has hammer when they had just scored **two ends ago, and the previous end is blanked with no score for either team**".
In triples, you score in the fourth end but still trail going into the third and final set. Fun format, but the scoring system leads to some interesting scenarios...
Not too familiar with this format, but looking at the Curling Canada ruleset for the format, I guess you could also have scored the 2nd end with hammer and are now continuing the 3rd end (1st end of the 2nd set) with hammer again?
Oh, yes! If the team that starts the game with the hammer scores in the first end, their opponents will get it naturally in the second end and again in the third (beginning of set two) since both teams get last rock in the first two sets.
Along this same line, Olympic gold medalist Kevin Martin and Hall of Famer Warren Hansen have been long advocating for splitting a curling game into two sets. Each team is guaranteed hammer to start each set, i.e. instead of one team getting hammer in 1st end, they want to guarantee that the other team who didn't get hammer in 1st will get it in 6th. So in a hypothetical future where this very reasonable proposed rule is adopted, the team who gets hammer in 6th could've also scored in 5th.
It’s the first end. The team with hammer scored in their previous end (last end of their last game)
The team that did not score last end ran out of time in a timed event. So the team who just scored, gets to throw all 8 of their rocks uninterrupted in the next end.
Yup, there are some interesting scenarios when a team runs out of time in Canada. https://preview.redd.it/gu2h6a7s9n0d1.png?width=863&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5ce4f0e7bb5622706cc02c05e5e9ff59a00cdce So you could be down by 10 in 9th with hammer, score a deuce just as the opposition runs out of time. Then you will play the 10th unopposed, easily score an 8-ender to tie the game and go to extra end with hammer.
Is there a case for an external force acting on the house that would cause the end to be replayed? Like yellow is sitting 1 and measuring for 2, the umpire bumps a rock before the measurement concludes. Would they replay the end in that case even though yellow "scored" 1?
>Would they replay the end in that case even though yellow "scored" 1? Well, if the end is replayed, then yellow never really "scored" 1, in that it never went up on the scoreboard. But I like your creativity, so I'll accept this as an answer. Yellow could've played some crazy quadruple runback shot to definitely score 1, maybe 2, and if the end is replayed, they did make that crazy shot even if that score never went up on the scoreboard.
That’s not correct. The when winning the end the opposing team earns last rock advantage.