Every other kind of curling
Cannot crouch? Cannot find four people? No ice? There is a version of this game for each of those, and none of them is a consolation prize.
Last updated 2026-08-18
The official disciplines#
World Curling runs championships in more forms of the game than most people realise. Each of these has its own world championship and its own rules chapter.
| Discipline | Players | Ends | What is different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mixed curling | Four — two men, two women | Eight | The full team game with a composition rule: genders must alternate in the delivery order, and the skip and vice-skip must be of opposite genders. No alternates. It has its own world championship. |
| Mixed doubles | Two — one man, one woman | Eight | Five stones each, two of them placed before the end begins, plus a power play. Olympic since 2018 and the fastest-growing form of the game. |
| Wheelchair curling | Four, both genders required | Eight | Delivery from a stationary chair, no sweeping at all, delivery stick permitted. Paralympic since 2006. |
| Wheelchair mixed doubles | Two — one man, one woman | Eight | Mixed doubles rules, wheelchair delivery, and no sweeping whatsoever. The newest World Curling discipline. |
| Juniors, seniors | Four | Eight to ten | Age-graded versions of the team game with their own world championships. The rules are the rules; only eligibility changes. |
Two entirely different disciplines with confusingly similar names. Mixed curling is the ordinary four-player game with two men and two women who must alternate in the throwing order. Mixed doubles is a two-player game with five stones, placed stones and a power play. Commentators mix them up too.
Stick curling, and playing standing up#
A delivery stick is a shaft with a bracket that fits over the stone's handle. You stand, you push, you let go. No crouch, no slide, no weight on one knee.
This matters far more than its coverage suggests. The crouched, sliding delivery is the single biggest physical barrier to curling — it is hard on knees, hard on backs and genuinely frightening on a first visit — and it is the reason people give up the sport in their sixties and seventies. The stick removes it entirely.
Sturling, the two-player game#
The organised version. Invented by Brian Dingman and Carson Schultz of Didsbury, Alberta, in 1998, originally as "push broom curling" and renamed when delivery sticks took over. The format:
- Two players a side, six stones each per end.
- No sweeping.
- The two curlers deliver alternately while their team-mates skip from the other end — then the roles reverse, so everybody throws and everybody skips.
- Six ends.
It has provincial and national championships in Canada, and a great many club leagues that never bother competing at all.
Where sticks are and are not allowed#
| Setting | Delivery stick |
|---|---|
| World Curling wheelchair events | Permitted — and must be used for every stone if used at all. |
| Other World Curling competitions and qualifiers | Not permitted. |
| Stick curling leagues and championships | Required. |
| Ordinary club play | Up to the club, and almost always welcome. World Curling publishes recommendations for recreational use. |
A stick may not confer any mechanical advantage beyond acting as an extension of the arm, which is the rule that stops anyone building a catapult.
What clubs actually run#
None of these are variants in the rulebook sense. They are how the sport is actually organised, and a new curler will meet them long before they meet a world championship discipline.
- Learn to curl. A two-hour introduction, all equipment provided, usually ending in a short game. Essentially every club runs them and they are the front door to the sport. See your first time on the ice.
- Little Rocks. Junior curling with lighter stones — often around 20 to 25 pounds rather than 40 — so that children can deliver them with something like adult technique rather than shoving them.
- Open, mixed and social leagues. The weekly draw that most curling consists of, frequently with no gender rule at all.
- Bonspiels. Weekend tournaments, usually triple knockout so nobody drives four hours for one game. See competition formats.
Outdoor and hybrid games#
Crokicurl#
The most successful new winter game of the last decade, and genuinely new rather than a stunt. Invented in 2017 by Liz Wreford and Leanne Muir and first played at The Forks in Winnipeg, crokicurl is curling crossed with the board game crokinole: a circular outdoor rink, quadrant scoring, teams of two, and the crokinole rule that you must hit an opponent's stone if there is one in play. Rinks now appear across Canada and beyond every winter, because it is cheap to build and takes about a minute to learn.
Curling without ice#
Synthetic-surface curling exists, using purpose-made stones on plastic rink panels, and it is mostly used for demonstrations, corporate events and recruitment. It is not the same game — there is no pebble, so there is no curl worth the name — but it does put a stone in somebody's hand in a shopping centre in July, which is a legitimate purpose.
Relatives that are not curling#
Worth knowing about, and worth not confusing with curling.
Ice stock sport, or Eisstockschießen, is an Alpine sport occasionally marketed in English as Bavarian curling. Competitors slide a handled stock — a body with a gliding surface and a long stick attached, not a granite stone — either at a target or for maximum distance. There is no sweeping, the equipment is entirely different, and it is routinely played on asphalt in summer. It appeared as a demonstration sport at the Winter Olympics. It is a cousin of curling, not a version of it, and its players would like you to know that.
Elsewhere#
- Stick curling — Ontario Curling CouncilWhat stick curling is and how to find a league, from an association that runs them.
- Sturling’s humble rootsThe origin story, from the inventors.
Sources#
- Primary The Rules of Curling, R14–R17 World Curling, 2025Wheelchair, wheelchair mixed doubles, mixed and mixed doubles rules, plus the delivery stick restrictions at R11(e).
- Ice stock sportOn Eisstockschießen, its equipment and its relationship to curling.
- CrokicurlOn the 2017 invention at The Forks and how the game is played.