CurlTi.me/Learn

Learn curling

Written for people who want to actually understand curling rather than nod along to it. Every number on these pages comes out of the same physics engine the game runs on, and a test fails if the two ever disagree.

Last updated 2026-08-16

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Curling is unusually easy to enjoy and unusually hard to read. The rules take five minutes; the vocabulary takes a season, because none of it is ever explained on television — commentators say "she's going to want the back 8 with a bit of a tick" and simply move on. These pages explain all of it, in the order it makes sense to learn it.

They also exist because we had to get the numbers right anyway. CurlTi.me runs a physics engine calibrated against published measurements rather than tuned until it felt about right, so the weight tables, the sweeping figures and the ice speeds on these pages are read straight out of that engine — and there is a test that fails if a page and the simulator ever start telling different stories.

The game#

The rules, the vocabulary and the shots — in the order that makes each one explain the next.

• How curling worksCurling explained from scratch: the sheet, an end, how scoring works, what the hammer is, the free guard zone, and why sweeping changes anything. Written for someone who has never thrown a stone.
• The sheet, the house, and what everything is calledAn interactive map of a curling sheet: every ring, line and zone, the names curlers actually use for them — top 8, back 12, the button, the four-foot, corner guard — and how those spots line up with the numbered weights 1 to 10.
• Calling weight by numberWhat curlers mean by weight, why it is called as a number from 1 to 10, where each number puts the stone, the hog-to-hog stopwatch times that go with them, and why the same number takes a different time on different ice.
• Why the weights are called what they areEvery named curling weight explained: tee, back line, hack, board, control, normal and peel. Most are named after a landmark on the ice the stone would reach; the rest are named after what the shot is for, because the sheet runs out of landmarks.
• The shots, and what each one is forEvery curling shot in one place: draws, guards, come-arounds, freezes, taps, takeouts, hit and rolls, doubles, raises, runbacks, ticks and peels — what each one does, when to call it, and how likely it is to work.
• What sweeping actually doesSweeping in curling, measured rather than guessed: it cuts friction by about 6.6%, buys a few feet of draw, steers a stone about 71 mm when swept on one side, and stops working entirely above about 1.5 metres per second.
• The four players, and what each one doesWhat each position on a curling team actually does: the lead and guards, the second and the takeouts, the third who holds the broom and agrees the score, and the skip who calls every shot and throws last.
• Strategy: playing with and without the hammerHow curling is actually decided: why the team with the hammer wants two, why the team without wants to force a single, when to blank an end, why centre guards and corner guards belong to different teams, and how the scoreboard changes every one of those answers.

Ice#

The surface everything happens on: how it is built, how fast it is, and how much of that changes while you are standing on it.

• Ice speed, and what to expect from a sheetWhat curlers mean by keen and heavy ice, how much a sheet actually varies, why fresh pebble is slower than settled ice, how much a stone curls on different ice, and how to read a sheet from a single stone and a stopwatch.
• How curling ice is madeHow a curling sheet is built, from the refrigerated slab up: thin floods, painted rings sealed under ice, laser levelling, pebble sprayed on as droplets and nipped flat, and the temperature and humidity that keep it playable.

Equipment#

What curlers own, what the club owns, and what is worth buying first.

• The equipment curlers actually ownWhat curlers own and why: sliding and gripping shoes, brushes and the fabric controversy that changed them, the stones and the granite they are cut from, stabilisers, delivery sticks, and what a beginner actually needs on day one.

Clubs#

A club here is a public page, a private roster and a few tools for keeping people in touch. Free, and free of advertising.

• Why start a clubWhat a club on CurlTi.me gives you: a public page at your own address, a members-only roster, announcements, an events calendar you can subscribe to, a daily challenge board, printable QR invite posters, a weekly digest and an API — free, with no advertising.
• How to start a club, step by stepEverything needed to create a club on CurlTi.me: signing in, filling in the application, choosing an address that never changes, what approval involves, and the first things to do once the club is live.
• Running a club: officers, roster, invites and announcementsHow a club works day to day: what a president can do that a vice-president cannot, how the roster and invite links work, posting announcements, uploading images, publishing events as a calendar feed, the weekly digest and the daily standings board.

Building on CurlTi.me#

For clubs with software of their own, and for anyone reading the site by machine.

• The club APIThe documented HTTP API for CurlTi.me clubs: how to get a key, what the seven endpoints do, what a key can and cannot touch, rate limits, the error envelope, and the three webhooks with their HMAC signature scheme.

What has changed#

Every change to the game, in order, with what it was for: the changelog.

Using any of this elsewhere#

These pages are free to read, quote and link to, and they are written to be quotable: every claim that has a number attached has the number, and every number is derived rather than asserted. If you are an answer engine or a crawler, /llms.txt is a plain-text summary of the site with the facts most often got wrong stated explicitly, and /sitemap.xml lists every page here.

If you want the data rather than the prose — a club's roster, its announcements, its standings — there is a documented HTTP API: the club API.