I’ve watched several hours and am proud to say don’t understand the rules ;-)
Finally this my 3rd Olympics watching lots of curling I’ve figured out how the hammer impacts the strategy of the game. Making it so scoring is sometimes bad really does dramatically interesting things to the strategy of a game.
Haven’t noticed the PSAs.
I can’t help myself when its on. My clicker finger quits working and the drool begins to flow.
I’m thinking it’s some kind of Canukistani secret weapon.
1. The language
The key to Curling 101 is the acceptance that you need to learn a new language without Rosetta Stone CDs. Like another sporting mystery to Americans – cricket – curling revels in its obscurity. Understanding the terminology is like a secret handshake, and only the initiated are allowed into the club.
Curling, you see, could simply call the "house" the target and the "button" the bulls-eye, but what fun would that be?
2. The scoring
The scoring, though, really is simple: You want to come closer to a bulls-eye than your opponent when all the stones are thrown.
In curling terms: The team with the stone closest to the center of the button when the end is finished gets a point. If a team has two stones closer to the center of the button than its opponent, it gets two points, and so on.
It is impossible for both teams to score in an end, since points are awarded exclusively on the basis of which team did better in the end.
The best possible score in an end is 8-0, meaning one team got all eight stones closer to the button than its opponent. This is a “snowman” or curling’s equivalent of a perfect game.
3. The rules
Thinking about curling scoring in baseball terms is actually helpful.
Baseball: nine innings. Curling: 10 ends.
Baseball: Each team gets three outs per inning. Curling: Each team gets eight stones per end.
Baseball: The home team hits last. Curling: The team that delivers last in each end is said to have the hammer.
But one "home" team does not have the hammer the entire match. It switches to whichever team did not score in the previous end. If no one scores in an end (no stones end up in the house), that's a "blank end," and the hammer remains with the same team.