It’s complicated. It’s confusing. It’s enigmatic, perhaps even infamous. It’s Curling!
source: flickr
Curling is difficult to explain in words but I'll try my best. Many people are baffled by the sport, so read this slowly. Curling involves athletes sliding ‘stones’ towards a target (painted on ice), with their teammates sweeping the ice in front with brooms. Essentially, the objective of the sport is to place your stone as close to the centre of the target (called the button) as possible. The game consists of ‘ends’, with each team throwing 8 stones in an end. After all the stones are thrown in an end, the score is calculated by counting the number of stones hypothetical team A has closer to the button than hypothetical team B’s closest stone. Therefore, only one team can score in an end. Didn't work? Let's try that again.
An 'end' is to curling what an 'inning' is to baseball or a 'game' to tennis. 16 stones are thrown in an end. At this point, the target (or 'house') may resemble what is depicted in the picture above. The white dot in the middle of the house is the button. Let's say the red stone belongs to Team A. It is the closest to the button. So, they get the points from this round. How many? To know that, look at the closest blue stone to the button. Now count the number of red stones that are closer to the button than that blue stone. That's the number of points earned by Team A in that end. The team with the higher score after 10 ends wins.
There is a Men's Team Event and a Women's Team Event, wherein 4 members + 1 alternate make up a team. There is also a Mixed Doubles event.
To find out more, you can follow the link and watch the video: