Kinda Hot Curling Chicks

[FMZ]

Men dont get into curling because the sport itself seems like fun..

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Seriously, does anyone know what's going on?

[/ QUOTE ]
I know what's going on. What's the hang-up?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't understand the scoring, the fundamental actions, the noises, the terms. This is the least intuative sport ever.

[/ QUOTE ]
Alright, let's see if I can make any sense of it.

Each team has 4 players, one called the skip. The skip is like the team captain - calls all the shots, throws last. Each player throws two rocks for a total of 8 throws per team. This is called an end - like an inning in baseball. There are 10 ends in a game and the winner is whoever scores more points through 10 ends (unless it's tied, then it goes to extra ends). Having the last throw on an end is called having the hammer. It is very good to have the hammer, so the teams take turns.

Scoring is based on who's closest to the center of the house (the target). The center of the house is called the button. You get points by having the closest stone to the button. You get one point for each stone that you have closer than the other team's closest stone and still in the house. Generally speaking, it's pretty tough to score if you don't have the hammer.

If, after all the stones are thrown in an end, there are no rocks that qualify to score (nothing in the house), then it's called blanking the end. When this happens, nobody scores and the team who had the hammer keeps it for the next end. You'll see this somewhat often in the 9th end. If it's a close game and the team who has the hammer is behind by one or tied in the 9th end, they'll try to blank the 9th and keep the hammer for the last end.

When they say a rock is curling, that means it's curving.

When they talk about weight, that's how hard the rock was thrown. If it's thrown real hard, it has a lot of weight.

A draw is when they aren't trying to hit another rock, but are trying to curl their shot and have it stay somewhere in the house all on its own.

A runout is when they smack another rock out of play.

A gaurd is a rock that's placed usually a bit in front of the house meant to block for another rock behind it so that the other team can't hit the one rock out.

A runback is a combo shot where the team hits the gaurd rock and then the gaurd rock goes back and hits another rock to knock it out.

A roll is when you hit another rock and then your rock goes off to one side or the other. Many times, you'll want to hit another team's rock out of the house and then hopefully you can roll off to the side behind a gaurd rock and then they won't be able to knock yours out.

When they're yelling, they're telling the sweepers what to do. Sweeping influences the speed and the curl of the stone. They'll yell "hard!" to really sweep hard, or "line only" to not influence how fast it's going, but to make sure it's following the right line.

"Taking a lot of ice" means they're probably trying to get around another stone and they want to shoot real wide and then curl it in. The amount of ice they're taking is how far over they're aiming to begin the shot.

Draw weight is throwing it just hard enough so that it would stop all by itself inside the house. Also, when you throw it slowly, it tends to curl more.

Takeout weight is when you throw it harder so that you can really move another stone when you hit it.

I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff, but hopefully this covers enough so you can figure out what's going on.

[Shajen]

NL Nut:

Please do not compare the plain-ness that is that curling chick to the Future Mrs Shajen.

(It will happen, even if those stupid "cops" *guffaw* demand I stay at least 500 yards from her.)