AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second blog post of a seven-part series of blog posts previewing the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea.
Although no new sports were added to the Winter Olympic program for the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, four new events have been added, with one new event added in each of the sports of curling, alpine skiing, long track speed skating, and snowboarding. In curling, a third tournament has been added to the Olympic curling program, and, instead of featuring teams of four players of the same gender like the other two tournaments, the new mixed doubles curling tournament will feature teams consisting of one man and one woman, and, in Pyeongchang, the mixed doubles tournament will be played before both of the four-a-side curling tournaments.
Like the four-a-side game, mixed doubles curling is played on a sheet of ice that is 150 feet in total length and 16 feet and 5 inches in total width, with players sliding (or throwing, as it as known in curling parlance) granite stones weighing anywhere from 38 to 44 pounds across the ice towards a circle, which is called the house, that is a total of 12 feet in diameter and has additional rings of 8 feet and 4 feet in diameter and a button of 1 foot in diameter. Also, like the four-a-side game, at the end of each end, and if there are any stones in the 12-foot circle, the team with the closest stone to the center of the button earns one point for every stone that is closer than the other team's closest stone.
However, there are many major rule differences between the mixed doubles form of curling that is new to the Winter Olympics and the four-a-side game that has been in the Winter Olympics for the past two decades. I'll explain many of the rule differences below.
Number of Ends
In all forms a curling, an end is a period of play of a match in which each team throws a certain and equal number of stones, and an end in curling is analogous to, for example, an inning in baseball or a frame in ten-pin bowling. In the four-a-side game at the Olympic level, a regulation curling match is ten ends, whereas, in the mixed doubles game at the Olympic level, a regulation curling match is eight ends.
Number of Stones
In the four-a-side game, each team throws eight stones per end, with each player on a particular team throwing two stones per end. In the mixed doubles game, each team plays six stones per end, but only five of them are thrown in each end, with one player throwing three stones and his or her teammate throwing two stones.
Alternate Players
In the mixed doubles game, teams do not have an alternate player available, meaning they they do not have the option of substituting a player during a game like teams in the four-a-side game do. If one or both players of a team are unable to continue play, the team must forfeit the match.
Positioned Stones and Power Play
Unlike the four-a-side game, where no stones are pre-positioned on the ice at the start of any end, in the mixed doubles game, each team places one of their stones on the ice, with, in most ends, one of the teams being able to choose to place their positioned stone either in the back part of the 4-foot ring of the house on a center line that runs through the house and is parallel to the direction of play, or in front of the house and on the center line, with, in either case, the other team having their stone positioned in the position that remains vacant. Each team in the mixed doubles game has the option of using a power play for one end, but a team can only invoke power play if it has the ability to choose placement of their pre-positioned stone, and the power play cannot be used in any extra ends that are played to break a tie after the eighth end. If one team invokes their power play option, the team invoking the power play can place their pre-positioned stone either in the left side of the house on the outer boundary of the eight-foot ring or in front of the house and anywhere from three feet and five inches to three feet and seven inches from the center line, with the other team placing their pre-positioned stone in the spot left vacant.
Protected Stones
In curling, a guard is any stone that is not in the house and is in front of a line running through the center of the button and perpendicular to the direction of play. In the four-a-side game, a free guard zone rule is in effect for each team's first two stones that are thrown in any given end, in which no player can throw a stone to remove one of the opposing team's guards from play until both teams have thrown two stones in the end. In the mixed doubles game, a different protected stone rule is used: for the first two stones of an end thrown by the team that does not have the hammer, or the right to throw the last stone of the end, and the first stone of an end thrown by the team with hammer, the team throwing a stone cannot remove an opposing team's stone from play, whether it be a guard or a stone in the house. Violations of the protected stone rule in the mixed doubles game are dealt with the same way as violations of the free guard zone rule in the four-a-side game: the stone that the violating team threw is removed from play, and the non-violating team's stone that was illegally removed from play is replaced where it was prior to the illegal throw.
Thinking Time
In order to prevent curling matches from taking a ridiculously long time like the typical Major League Baseball game does nowadays, high-level curling matches in both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play employ thinking time, or a total amount of time over the length of a game that a team can take to think about the shot they are about to play and play the shot. In both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play, each team is subject to a separate thinking time clock than the thinking time clock that the other team is subject to. In both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play, if one team runs out of thinking time, the other team automatically wins by forfeit. In the four-a-side game, each team is allotted 38 minutes of thinking time for regulation and 4 minutes and 30 seconds of thinking time for each extra end, should any extra ends be needed. In the mixed doubles game, each team is allotted 22 minutes of thinking time for regulation and 3 minutes of thinking time for each extra end, should any extra ends be needed.
Although no new sports were added to the Winter Olympic program for the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, four new events have been added, with one new event added in each of the sports of curling, alpine skiing, long track speed skating, and snowboarding. In curling, a third tournament has been added to the Olympic curling program, and, instead of featuring teams of four players of the same gender like the other two tournaments, the new mixed doubles curling tournament will feature teams consisting of one man and one woman, and, in Pyeongchang, the mixed doubles tournament will be played before both of the four-a-side curling tournaments.
Like the four-a-side game, mixed doubles curling is played on a sheet of ice that is 150 feet in total length and 16 feet and 5 inches in total width, with players sliding (or throwing, as it as known in curling parlance) granite stones weighing anywhere from 38 to 44 pounds across the ice towards a circle, which is called the house, that is a total of 12 feet in diameter and has additional rings of 8 feet and 4 feet in diameter and a button of 1 foot in diameter. Also, like the four-a-side game, at the end of each end, and if there are any stones in the 12-foot circle, the team with the closest stone to the center of the button earns one point for every stone that is closer than the other team's closest stone.
However, there are many major rule differences between the mixed doubles form of curling that is new to the Winter Olympics and the four-a-side game that has been in the Winter Olympics for the past two decades. I'll explain many of the rule differences below.
Number of Ends
In all forms a curling, an end is a period of play of a match in which each team throws a certain and equal number of stones, and an end in curling is analogous to, for example, an inning in baseball or a frame in ten-pin bowling. In the four-a-side game at the Olympic level, a regulation curling match is ten ends, whereas, in the mixed doubles game at the Olympic level, a regulation curling match is eight ends.
Number of Stones
In the four-a-side game, each team throws eight stones per end, with each player on a particular team throwing two stones per end. In the mixed doubles game, each team plays six stones per end, but only five of them are thrown in each end, with one player throwing three stones and his or her teammate throwing two stones.
Alternate Players
In the mixed doubles game, teams do not have an alternate player available, meaning they they do not have the option of substituting a player during a game like teams in the four-a-side game do. If one or both players of a team are unable to continue play, the team must forfeit the match.
Positioned Stones and Power Play
Unlike the four-a-side game, where no stones are pre-positioned on the ice at the start of any end, in the mixed doubles game, each team places one of their stones on the ice, with, in most ends, one of the teams being able to choose to place their positioned stone either in the back part of the 4-foot ring of the house on a center line that runs through the house and is parallel to the direction of play, or in front of the house and on the center line, with, in either case, the other team having their stone positioned in the position that remains vacant. Each team in the mixed doubles game has the option of using a power play for one end, but a team can only invoke power play if it has the ability to choose placement of their pre-positioned stone, and the power play cannot be used in any extra ends that are played to break a tie after the eighth end. If one team invokes their power play option, the team invoking the power play can place their pre-positioned stone either in the left side of the house on the outer boundary of the eight-foot ring or in front of the house and anywhere from three feet and five inches to three feet and seven inches from the center line, with the other team placing their pre-positioned stone in the spot left vacant.
Protected Stones
In curling, a guard is any stone that is not in the house and is in front of a line running through the center of the button and perpendicular to the direction of play. In the four-a-side game, a free guard zone rule is in effect for each team's first two stones that are thrown in any given end, in which no player can throw a stone to remove one of the opposing team's guards from play until both teams have thrown two stones in the end. In the mixed doubles game, a different protected stone rule is used: for the first two stones of an end thrown by the team that does not have the hammer, or the right to throw the last stone of the end, and the first stone of an end thrown by the team with hammer, the team throwing a stone cannot remove an opposing team's stone from play, whether it be a guard or a stone in the house. Violations of the protected stone rule in the mixed doubles game are dealt with the same way as violations of the free guard zone rule in the four-a-side game: the stone that the violating team threw is removed from play, and the non-violating team's stone that was illegally removed from play is replaced where it was prior to the illegal throw.
Thinking Time
In order to prevent curling matches from taking a ridiculously long time like the typical Major League Baseball game does nowadays, high-level curling matches in both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play employ thinking time, or a total amount of time over the length of a game that a team can take to think about the shot they are about to play and play the shot. In both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play, each team is subject to a separate thinking time clock than the thinking time clock that the other team is subject to. In both four-a-side play and mixed doubles play, if one team runs out of thinking time, the other team automatically wins by forfeit. In the four-a-side game, each team is allotted 38 minutes of thinking time for regulation and 4 minutes and 30 seconds of thinking time for each extra end, should any extra ends be needed. In the mixed doubles game, each team is allotted 22 minutes of thinking time for regulation and 3 minutes of thinking time for each extra end, should any extra ends be needed.
Comments
Post a Comment