Curling Rules: Ends, Scoring, Hammer, Sweeping and Etiquette

Your first league night, the skip waves you over: “You’ve got hammer, the guard’s protected until the sixth rock, and don’t touch that stone between the hog lines.” For a minute it sounds like another language. Then it clicks, and you realize curling rules are simpler than they sound, and that the most important rule isn’t in a numbered list at all. This page walks through the basics as World Curling writes them (the July 2025 Rules of Curling): ends, scoring and the hammer, delivery and sweeping, the free guard zone, mixed doubles and wheelchair curling, and then curling etiquette and the Spirit of Curling.

The sheet, the stones and the team

• The sheet is 150 feet long and up to 15 feet 7 inches wide. At each end is the house: four rings around the center point (the tee), the outer one 12 feet across. The tee line runs through the center of the house, the back line along its back edge, and the hog line sits 21 feet in front of the tee line.
• Stones weigh 38 to 44 pounds including handle and bolt and are no more than 36 inches around. Each team has eight, marked by handle color.
• A team is four players, each delivering two stones in a row per end, alternating with an opponent. USA Curling names the positions: the lead throws first and sweeps the rest, the second throws third and fourth, the vice-skip throws fifth and sixth and holds the broom for the skip, and the skip throws last and calls the game. A team may play with three, but never fewer.

Ends, game length and time

A game is a series of ends. In each end, all 16 stones are thrown toward one house, the score is counted, and the next end is played back the other way. World Curling schedules 10 ends for men’s and women’s championships and 8 ends for mixed, mixed doubles and wheelchair events; a minimum number of ends (six in most games) must be played before a team can concede. In championships each team has a chess-style clock of 38 minutes of “thinking time” for a 10-end game and 30 for an 8-end game. Club leagues are looser: USA Curling says most league games are 8 ends and take about 2 hours. A tie after the last end goes to an extra end, and the first team to score wins.

How scoring works

Only one team scores in an end. When the last stone stops, the team with the stone closest to the tee scores one point for each of its stones in or touching the house that is closer to the tee than the other team’s best stone. A stone just touching the outer ring counts. Until the last stone has come to rest, you can only measure by eye (except to check whether a stone is in play or in the free guard zone); after that, close calls are settled with a measuring device from the tee to the nearest edge of each stone. If even the device can’t separate them, the stones are treated as equal, and if that decides who scored, the end is blanked.

Clubs often use a traditional scoreboard where the numbers across the middle are the running score and the cards you hang show the end in which each team reached it. Championships use a baseball-style board with ends across the top.

The hammer

The last stone of an end is the hammer, and it’s a big edge: USA Curling says the team with hammer typically hopes to score two. A coin toss or a Last Stone Draw (each team draws two stones to the tee after practice; the smaller total distance gets to choose) decides who throws first in the first end. After that, the team that scores throws first in the next end, which hands the hammer to the team that didn’t score. If nobody scores, the order stays the same, so the team with hammer keeps it. That’s why teams sometimes blank an end on purpose: keeping the hammer for a better chance later beats scoring just one. Scoring without the hammer is a “steal.”

Delivery rules

• Right-handed curlers push off the hack on the left of the center line, left-handers from the right one.
• Let go before the hog line. The stone must be clearly released before it reaches the near hog line, or it’s removed from play. Many championships use an electronic hog line device in the handle to check it.
• Cross the far hog line. A stone that stops short of the far hog line is removed, unless it hit another stone. A stone that crosses the back line, touches a side line or rolls over is also out.
• Throw from the handle. In World Curling events, delivery sticks are allowed only in wheelchair curling; many clubs allow stick delivery in their own leagues.

Sweeping rules

Sweeping can go in any direction but has to finish to either side of the stone, and you can’t drop debris in front of it. The rest is about who may sweep where:

• Any player of the delivering team may sweep its stone anywhere in front of the tee line at the far end, and the same goes for its own stones set in motion by a hit.
• Behind the tee line, only one player from each team may sweep at a time: any player of the delivering team, but only the skip or vice-skip of the other team.
• You may never sweep an opponent’s stone until it reaches the tee line, and then only behind it. That’s how a skip sweeps an opponent’s stone out the back of the house.
• A stone sitting still can’t be swept until something sets it moving.

Touching a moving stone (a “burned” stone): if your own team touches its moving stone between the tee line at the delivery end and the far hog line, that stone is removed. Inside the far hog line, the other team chooses whether to remove it, leave everything as it lies, or place the stones where they’d have ended up. Competitive events also regulate sweeping gear: each player declares one broom and can’t change brush heads during a game. Weekly leagues usually don’t apply those equipment limits.

The free guard zone and the no-tick rule

The free guard zone is the area between the far hog line and the tee line, not counting the house. Until the sixth stone of an end is thrown, a stone that knocks an opponent’s stone out of the free guard zone and out of play is removed, and the guard goes back where it was. This “five-rock rule” means the first five stones can set up guards that can’t be cleared, which keeps ends busy and comebacks possible. A newer no-tick rule adds that, before the sixth stone, you can’t tap an opponent’s guard off the center line; if you do, the other team can choose to put everything back. The no-tick rule doesn’t apply in wheelchair curling or mixed doubles.

Mixed doubles rules

• Teams of two, one man and one woman; games are 8 ends, with 22 minutes of thinking time per team in championships.
• Each team delivers five stones per end. The player who throws the team’s first stone also throws its last; the partner throws the middle three. Both players may sweep.
• Before every end, each team has one “positioned” stone placed on the center line: one as a guard in front of the house and one at the back of the four-foot ring. Positioned stones can score.
• The team that didn’t score chooses where the stones go for the next end; the team whose stone sits in the house throws second and has the hammer. Once per game, each team can call a power play, moving both positioned stones to the side of the sheet.
• There’s no free guard zone; instead, no stone may be knocked out of play until the fourth stone of the end is thrown.

Wheelchair curling rules

Wheelchair curlers deliver from a stationary chair, by hand or with a delivery stick, with the wheels on the ice and no body part touching it. There’s no sweeping, so precision is everything. In World Curling events a team is four players with both genders on the ice at all times, and games are 8 ends. Wheelchair mixed doubles follows the mixed doubles rules, again without sweeping.

Curling etiquette and the Spirit of Curling

World Curling opens its rulebook with the Spirit of Curling: curlers play to win but never to humble their opponents, never try to distract them, and would rather lose than win unfairly. If they break a rule by accident, they’re the first to say so. USA Curling turns that into everyday habits:

• Call your own fouls, such as a burned stone, and never knowingly break a rule.
• Be still and quiet during the other team’s delivery. Under the rules, players of the non-delivering team stand still along the sides between the courtesy lines, and only the skip and vice-skip may wait behind the back line.
• Never cheer a missed shot. Compliment a good one, whichever team made it.
• Don’t touch the ice with your hands or knees; body heat leaves marks in seconds. The rules even warn players for damaging the ice with hand or body prints.
• Be ready when it’s your turn, and concede gracefully: a team may concede only when it is the delivering team.

New to the game? Our youth and Learn to Curl guide covers what to expect, leagues and associations explains clubs and bonspiels, and the curling gear page covers brooms, sliders and grippers. Back to the curling hub.

Curling rules questions

How many points can you score in one end?

Up to eight, if all eight of your stones are in the house and closer to the tee than any of the other team’s. It’s very rare; one or two points is normal.

What happens if nobody’s stone is in the house?

It’s a blank end: no score, and the team that had the hammer keeps it for the next end.

What is the hog line rule?

You must let go of the stone before it reaches the hog line at your end, and it must come to rest beyond the hog line at the far end (unless it hits another stone). Either violation takes the stone out of play.

Can you sweep the other team’s stone?

Only behind the tee line, and only after it reaches the tee line. Then one player per team may sweep, and for the non-delivering team that must be the skip or vice-skip.

What is the five-rock rule?

It’s the free guard zone rule: guards between the hog line and the house can’t be knocked out of play until the sixth stone of the end. Breaking it means your stone is removed and the guard goes back.

Who keeps score in a club game?

The players. The skips or vice-skips in charge of the house agree on each end’s score; there are no umpires in most club games, which is why the Spirit of Curling matters so much.