Doubles curling ‘all offence, all the time’
Sport being introduced at PyeongChang has quirky rules which need explaining
Two players per team. Two rocks get placed in play before anyone throws one. Each team gets one “power play” per game.
These are just some of the quirky rules that make up mixed doubles curling, which will make its Olympic debut in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“Some of the rules, from a broadcasting standpoint, are going to need to be explained, especially at the start,” skip Reid Carruthers said going into this week’s Canadian Olympic mixed doubles trials in Portage la Prairie, Man.
“I have had some people say they don’t like it. Before I tried it, I wasn’t a big fan. I was a bit of a skeptic.
“I played it once, and now I truly love it.”
Chelsea Carey predicts fans will, too.
The skip of one of the top women’s teams in the country, Carey teamed up with Carruthers’ regular lead, Winnipegger Colin Hodgson, when mixed doubles became an Olympic sport, three years ago.
She says there’s never a dull moment in the new game.
“I imagine it would be a lot more exciting for TV just because it’s all offence, all the time,” Carey said. “And it moves a lot faster, because the ends are really short. I enjoy watching it, because fours and fives happen all the time.
“Even if a team has a big lead, there’s no defending it.”
Teams throw just five rocks each, one player throwing the first and last, the other stones two, three and four.
Which player throws first and last can change from end to end.
And nobody can take out a stone until the fourth delivered stone of the end.
“The rules are so different it’s easy to get a little confused,” Carey said. “I check every time I call a hit for Colin to throw, like, ‘OK, can I do this, yet?’ ”
The pre-placing of the rocks goes like this: the team with last rock will get one stone at the back of the four-foot circle, while the team without the hammer gets a centre guard.
However, once per game the team with last rock can exercise a “power play,” in which the preplaced rocks, the one in the house and the guard, are moved out to the side.
Games are eight ends long. While the strategy is completely different from regular curling, the recipe for success isn’t.
“It’s interesting. You don’t play these teams all that often,” Carruthers said. “You play the players. But when you’re out there, chemistry is really, really important.
“It’s going to be the most prepared team that wins, just like at men’s and women’s. You’re cool and calm under pressure, you’re going to set yourself up to do well.”
The trials field of 18 teams will be divided into two pools, with round-robin play in each. The top two teams in each, plus the next four best, advance to the playoffs.
“Get out of your pool — then you have a one-in-eight chance of going to the Olympics,” Carruthers said.
Everybody understands that, which should make for a hotly contested week on ice.