The shots, and what each one is for
There are only two things a curling stone can do: stop somewhere useful, or move something else. Every named shot in the sport is a variation on one of those, and most of the names describe exactly what happens.
Last updated 2026-08-16
Two families#
Every shot in curling is one of two things.
- A draw — thrown to stop at a chosen spot. Slow, curls several feet, and everything about position play is built on it.
- A takeout — thrown to hit something. Fast, curls barely at all, and defined by the fact that it would leave the sheet if it missed.
That difference in curl is not incidental — it is the trade the whole sport runs on. A slow stone bends a long way, which lets it get to places a straight line cannot reach, but it takes a long time to get there and anything can happen. A fast stone goes where it is pointed, which makes it reliable and makes it useless for going around things.
The draws#
Draw#
Throw the stone so it stops on a named spot. "Draw the button", "draw the top 8". The plainest shot in the game and the one everything else is measured against — a team's draw weight is the first thing to fall apart under pressure and the last thing to come back.
Guard#
A draw that stops short of the house, between the hog line and the rings, where it blocks the path to whatever is behind it. A centre guard sits on the middle and protects the button; a corner guard sits out to the side and protects a wing. Which one you want depends entirely on whether you have the hammer — see strategy.
Come-around#
A draw thrown wide of a guard, so the curl brings it back in behind the guard. The result is a stone that cannot be hit in a straight line, which is called being buried.
This is the shot that explains the whole architecture of the game. Guards are not obstacles for their own sake; they are shelter, and the come-around is how you get into it.
Freeze#
A draw played until it touches the front of another stone and stops dead against it. It is the hardest position in curling to attack: with no gap, a takeout drives both stones together and generally leaves things exactly as bad as before.
It is also brutally hard to throw — a foot heavy and you have moved the stone you were trying to sit against, a foot light and you have left a gap and handed over a takeout.
Tap back#
A draw with just enough extra weight to nudge a stone further into the house rather than remove it. Used to push your own stone from second-best to best, or to shift an opponent's stone off the button without giving up your own position. Sometimes called a promotion when the stone being moved is yours.
Raise#
A tap with ambition: hit one of your own stones — often a guard — hard enough to send it into the house as the scoring stone. An angle raise hits it off-centre so it travels sideways into a spot that could not be drawn to directly.
The hits#
Takeout#
Hit an opposing stone and remove it. If your own stone stays in the house afterwards it is a hit and stay, which is the best available outcome and is a good deal harder than it sounds: the shooter keeps most of its speed after a thin contact and very little after a full one.
Hit and roll#
Strike the target deliberately off-centre so the shooter carries on at an angle and finishes somewhere better than where it hit — behind a guard, or closer to the button. Calling this shot means naming two things at once: what you are removing, and where you are going.
Double takeout#
Remove two opposing stones with one shot, usually by driving the first into the second. Spectacular, low percentage, and occasionally the only shot on the board.
Runback#
Hit a stone in front — often a guard — hard enough that it runs back into the house and removes something there. It is a double takeout played through your own obstacle, and it is how a team gets at a stone that is properly buried.
Peel#
Maximum weight, thrown at a guard, to remove it and roll your own stone out of play too. That leaves the end empty, which is exactly what a team defending a lead wants — nothing built, nothing to lose. See why the weights are called what they are.
Tick#
A glancing shot that moves a centre guard sideways without removing it from play — legal during the free guard zone rule, because the stone is still on the ice. It turns a centre guard into a corner guard, which is a completely different problem for the team that threw it. Extremely fine, and a miss either way is expensive.
Which one is the right one#
A skip choosing a shot is trading three things: how likely it is to work, how good the result is if it does, and how bad the position is if it does not. The third is the one beginners forget.
| Shot | Difficulty | What it costs when it misses |
|---|---|---|
| Draw to an open house | Low | Not much — a stone slightly out of place. |
| Guard | Low | A guard in the wrong place can shelter the other team instead of you. |
| Takeout of an open stone | Low to medium | Usually a roll-out, leaving the house empty rather than yours. |
| Come-around | Medium | Heavy and you are through the house; light and you are a second guard. |
| Hit and roll to a spot | Medium to high | The roll is the unreliable half. Thin contact and you are gone. |
| Freeze | High | A gap hands over an easy takeout; too heavy and you moved the stone you wanted. |
| Double takeout | High | Miss the first stone thinly and you have added your stone to their end. |
| Runback | Very high | Everything moves, mostly in ways nobody planned. |
| Tick | Very high | Too thick and it is out of play, and the rule puts it back and removes yours. |
Every shot is three decisions#
However exotic the name, a call is always the same three things:
- Weight — how far the stone would go. Called as a number or a stopwatch time. Calling weight by number.
- Line — where to aim, marked by the skip's broom. Not where you want the stone to finish: where it has to start, given how much it will curl on this ice today.
- Handle — which way to turn it. In-turn or out-turn, which decides which way it bends.
Sweeping is the fourth lever, and unlike the other three it is applied while the stone is moving, by people who can see how it is going. That is its whole value, and it is smaller than it looks — what sweeping actually does.