What to do when your opponent intentionally burns a stone

Hear more about this subject and other curling topics from Jonathan Havercroft on Rocks Across the Pond: A Curling Podcast  available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and TuneIn

We had an interesting twitter conversation this week prompted by Amanda from the Tulsa Curling Club’s question about what to do when an opponent intentionally burns a stone. She asked: “What are the consequences if the OTHER team intentionally burns a stone to protect their other stones?”

This is a situation that comes up pretty rarely, but it important to think through. One of my favourite things about curling is that it is largely a self-policed sport. Even at the highest levels, the umpires are largely deferential to the players, intervening normally to clarify a rules dispute rather than to penalize a team.

But because curling is self-policing there is always the risk that a player or players may take advantage of the situation and cheat. The situation that Amanda outlines is one of a team cheating – although they may not have realized they were doing that.

First, let’s be clear on what a burned stone is and what the rules and expectations are around how to handle a burned stone. I will work off the World Curling Federation rulebook because that governs the competitions I play and coach in, but the rules are pretty much the same regardless of the member association. Rule R.8 “Touched moving stone” describes what to do in the event of a burned stone. It covers three different situations:

1.     Between the t-line and the hog line at the playing end

2.     After the hog line at the playing end

3.     If the moving stone is touched by either the other team or an external force

In situation one (before the stone crosses the hog line) the offending team must stop the stone immediately and remove it from play. There are no ifs and or buts about this. If you or your sweeping partner burn the stone before the hog line, then anything other than stopping the stone are removing it from play is cheating.

The second situation is more interesting and where a lot of disputes can arise. Once the stone crosses the hog line, if a team burns the stone, then they must let the stone and any stones it touches come to rest and then immediately declare the infraction. Doing anything other than that is cheating.

We’ll set aside situation three as raises issues about rethrowing the stone that don’t concern us here. You can look that part up if you are curious.

The skip of the non-offending team then has three choices to make in the event of a burned stone between the t-line and hog line at the playing end. They can either:

1.     Let the outcome of the shot stand

2.     Remove the delivered stone from play and return all the other stones to their original positions before the shot was thrown

3.     Place the stones where they reasonable think they would have ended up without the burned stone

To return to the case Amanda raised on Twitter, the appropriate course of action when another team intentionally burns its own stone to avoid the negative consequence of the shot is to put the stones where they would have gone if the burn had not occurred. The team is trying to avoid this outcome, so they don’t have much of an argument to say that it would not have happened.

The burned stone rule raises a few other issues. First, it has become normal practice in both club and competitive play for teams, in the case of minor burned stones to let the outcome of the shot stand. This is often seen as being in the spirit of curling and not wanting to win by a burned stone, but on a made shot.

That is fair enough if that is what your team wants to do. But it is unfair, dare I say bad sportsmanship, to expect that your opponent will apply option 1. If you burn a stone all you can do is declare the foul and then let the opponent apply whichever of those three options they think is fair.

We have seen some controversy about this in recent years. At the 2018 Olympics, team Homan received a lot of social media backlash when they opted to remove a burned Danish stone rather than let it stand. Team Shuster faced a similar backlash in 2016 when they placed a burned Japanese stone where they thought it would have ended up rather than where it came to rest.

In both cases the other team committed the foul, and the skips correctly applied to rule. While you as a player may have chosen a different option, both Shuster and Homan were fully within their rights to apply the rule that they did.

So keep this in mind the next time you either burn a rock or have to decide how to burn a rock. If you are on the offending team you must declare the foul, otherwise you are cheating. You also have to accept whatever decision the other team makes as long as it is in the rules.

You can apply any of the three options if you are on the non-offending team. So if someone tries to intentionally burn a stone to escape a bad outcome for them, the obvious solution is to place the stones where they would have ended up had they not burned the stone.

What does a bench coach do?

Hear more about this subject and other curling topics from Jonathan Havercroft on Rocks Across the Pond: A Curling Podcast  available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and TuneIn

At the start of January I’ll be heading to Finland to coach the England Junior Men’s team in the World Junior B Curling Championship. For most curling fans they only know the bench coach as person who makes a very brief appearance during a team’s time out. On TV the coach usually makes a brief suggestion about what shot to play and then walks back to the bench.

On some of the more famous elite teams (e.g. team Koe) the bench coach never even bothers to leave the bench during the timeout. So for the casual curling fan, it may look like the bench coach actually does not do much. That actually could not be further from the truth. Let’s look at what a bench coach does from before a game right through until afterwards.

Pre-Game

I see my primary job as bench coach as supporting the team so that they can perform at their absolute best. In practice this means that I try to ensure that the team sticks to its agreed upon routines before, during, and after each game.

Basic sports psychology teaches us that the in order for individuals and teams performing at their best is the ability to consistently execute their skills when called upon to do so. The key to avoiding performance failure under pressure (i.e. choking) is for the athlete to develop consist mental and physical skills that they can repeat on demand regardless of the context. Making everything as routine as possible is the key ensuring consistent performance which in turn leads to success (i.e. winning).

What kind of routines am I talking about? For every match we have a pre-game meeting at an agreed upon time before the match, and usually away from the competition venue. Here we set our individual and team goals for the game, discuss how we will adopt our strategy given the ice conditions, our opponents, and other factors (perhaps we want to try a new tactic in a game situation, perhaps we want to avoid a tactic that has not been working lately).

We then aim to arrive at the venue an hour to forty-five minutes before the match. For a club curler this probably seem really early, but there is a lot that a team needs to do in a major event that the club team doesn’t need to do. In addition to getting changed and warmed up, both teams have a nine-minute practice session. Two players from each team must throw the last stone draw (LSD) to determine who has hammer.

As a coach I also need to set up my space on the bench – I work with an iPad and a notepad and paper, but many coaches bring laptops, cameras, and other gadgets to collect as much match data as they can. The coaches are also responsible for setting the team lineup and giving the names of the LSD throwers to the umpires.

Once the pre-game practice and LSD are complete I have one last chance to chat with the team before the game begins. I use those few moments to check in on how they are feeling and to reiterate key points from the pre-game meeting. Then I walk back to the coaching bench and the game is on.

Game Time

During the game I have very little interaction with the team. Most of my job is to watch the match closely to come up with pointers for how the team can improve for the next match and to identify and underscore the things the team is doing well.

Under WCF rules coaches only get two interactions with a team during the game – during the five-minute break at “halftime” and during the one-minute time out. The half time break normally consists of a snack, a bit of positive feedback, and maybe one or two suggestions of what to do differently in the second half.

The Art of the Time Out

The time out normally happens at a crucial juncture late in the match where the team calls on me for tactical advice. We only get one minute, but I try to impart three things during each timeout.

First I answer any questions they might have about the particular situation. Second I try to focus the team on what the ideal and acceptable outcomes are for the end. Is it acceptable to concede a point or even two points in this situation if it still puts us in an advantageous situation to win? What outcome do we want to avoid at all cost?

Third we try to briefly discuss the options for the next end. The goal is to help the team see how the specific strategic decision that led to the time-out fits into the larger goal of winning the game.

Post Game

My best opportunity to discuss the game as a coach happens during our post-game meeting. Like the pre-game meeting we normally hold this away from the venue in a quiet space. In addition to discussing any issues that came up during the game, we always review our pre-game goals and then agree on things we want to work on for the next game.

A key part of these routines is to get the players to focus on the small steps that are within their control from game to game so that they can maximize performance throughout the week. Normally the goals are very simple ones that focus on things like team communication and ice reading, rather than vague general goals like “make all my shots” or “shoot better than the other team”.

Over the years I’ve found that the teams that focus on doing as many of the small things that are within their control well tend to perform the best over the course of the week. The bench coach’s job is to help the team control the “control-ables” and then block everything else out so that the team can maximize its performance.

Team Formation and Team Dynamics

Hear more about this subject and other curling topics from Jonathan Havercroft on Rocks Across the Pond: A Curling Podcast  available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and TuneIn

With the curling offseason comes the time of year when most curlers begin to think about their plans for next season. For the professional curlers – especially in Canada – the major team shakeups happened months ago. Curling at the elite level is now driven entirely by the Olympics, and so most elite teams form for a four-year cycle. As soon as their Olympic run ends – whether it is when they fail to make the trials, are eliminated at the trials, or on the podium in Pyeongchang – the teams then turn to the conversation about “what do we want to do now?”

For some, the team breaks up entirely and each player goes his or her own way. For others, they do a slight reshuffle – changing one or two players – with the goal of reloading for another Olympic run. Finally, some teams decide to stand pat, thinking it is better to stick with a team that you know rather than go hunting for better options.

The process is a fascinating. And in the age of social media it is a lot easier to keep track of who has moved where. The Curling Geek has even put together a handy curling free agent tracker for the top 20 or so teams in Canada.

But what about team changes and team formation for the rest us? What should the club or competitive curler keep in mind when putting together a team for the next season? In a certain sense the process is very similar for the grassroots curlers as it is for the pros.

1.     Begin with the end in mind

The Dutch national coach once defined a curling team for me as “four individuals coming together to achieve a common goal.” I love that definition because it communicates so much in eight words. Many people just play with the first person who asks them, and then have a miserable season because the players haven’t talked about what they want to achieve, what the expectations are in terms of commitment, and how they want to achieve that goal.

The goal could be a very simple one. “We just want to have fun on Tuesday night, have a drink after the game, and maybe enter the local funspiel in March.” But I’ve seen lots of beer league teams torn apart when one player has ambitions to practice and try to win the league, and the other players are not interested I doing much more than have fun for two hours once a week. So the first step is to think through what your goal is for the season, and then find out who in you club has similar ambitions. When forming the team everyone should sit down and agree on three things:

a.     What is the team trying to accomplish? Is it just for fun? If so is everyone comfortable going 3 – 17 that season? Is it to “get better?” If so, is everyone willing to put in extra work to “get better?” Is it to win something (a league, a bonspiel, a playdown, a national championship)? If so, what are the expectations from the team both on and off the ice?

b.     What is everyone’s commitment level? If one player wants to practice four times a week, enter eight bonspiels and hire a personal trainer to work out five times a week while the three other players might want to enter one or two spiels, maybe practice when they can get the time, and drink beer all summer, I guarantee that team will not last long. The team has to agree on: a) what events are we going to play in; b) what are the practice expectations; c) what other things are we going to do as a team.

c.     What is the team’s expiry date? Most people don’t want to talk about when a team is going to end, but I believe every team should agree on a date when they will sit down and decide what they are going to do. If you are forming a competitive team in order to enter a playdown process then the natural end point is when you are eliminated in that process (or win, but keep in mind that only one team on the planet is going to finish the year a winner in each playdown process).

Once you agree on the end point, you should agree on two other things. First, it is unethical to change teams once you have committed to a team for a process. Second, if at the end of the playdown process someone wants to leave and join a new team, nobody should hold a grudge against that player for deciding to move on to a new team. Having an expiry date for a team makes it clear when players can decide to move on and also makes it clear when players should not move on.

2.     “I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right ones.”

The movie Miracle is about the 1980 gold medal winning USA Men’s Hockey Team. There is a scene early in the movie where the team coach, Herb Brooks, is assembling the roster, and one of his assistants complains that Brooks is leaving some of the best players off the team. Brooks replies that he wants the right players, not the best players.

Too often people form teams simply by trying to grab the four best players available. But there is so much more that goes into a team that just talent. At the outset a team should think about who is going to play where. To my mind the two most difficult positions to fill on a team are the skip and the lead.

Good skips take many curling seasons to develop. So if a team is forming with a new person in the house, the whole team has to be comfortable with the skip developing as both a game caller, and a last rock thrower. Leads are often the last person that most new teams think about, but in many ways good leads are as hard to find as good skips.

When the TSN Skins game was doing the all-star draft format, Ben Hebert was often the first player picked. That’s because the four things a great lead must have (excellent weight control, excellent strength and fitness to brush effectively, excellent weight judgment, and a team first mentality) is a very rare combination.

The other two positions also matter. A third has to be a great communicator, as the third is often the bridge between the skip and the front end. A second has to be a great shot maker, and a great sweeper.

In the ideal world a team would find the best positional player for each spot on the team, and everyone would get along. But in the real world, especially at the grassroots level, a team’s choices may be a lot narrower. If that is the case, when choosing teammates I think you should ask yourself two questions.

What is a player’s strengths? It is easy to focus on a club level player’s weaknesses, but if you can clearly identify what a player is good at, and then decide how the team can use that, then you are halfway to a good team.

Second, what is a player’s attitude? It is a lot easier to fix a player’s delivery than it is to fix a player’s attitude. It is far better off to choose a player with a good attitude that you will get along with, than to choose a player with a great delivery but you know you will end up hating by the end of the season.

3.     Keep the Team Dynamics Wheel in Mind

The Canadian curling coach Bill Tschirhart has a concept that he calls the “team dynamics wheel.” In his experience, curling teams (and I would say all teams in my personal experience) go through four phases.

A forming stage where the team is getting to know each other, the players are very polite to each other, but the players are reluctant to communicate. A storming stage where the team starts to fight with each other and the performance starts to dip. A norming stage where the team then agrees to work what the expectations and protocols will be on the team. Finally a performing stage where a team achieves its full potential.

If you are forming a new team, then you should keep this cycle in mind, and agree to the occasional off-ice check-in to see where the team is in the performance cycle. I strongly recommend that your team (regardless of the playing level) find someone to act as a coach and facilitator.

If you are lucky enough to have a certified curling coach at your local club, your team should reach out to him or her for some help. But if there is no such coach available, then I think a knowledgeable but neutral third party can fulfill this role. What that person can help with is facilitating the team conversation when things start to go wrong.

Ideally you should have a team meeting with this person as your team is forming, and then agree to have regular meetings as a team, with your coach, throughout the season. An external person watching the team dynamics and body language on the ice can often pick up on things that the team may not notice. A coach can also often address “elephant in the room” issues that teammates may be reluctant to share with each other.

Keeping the team performance wheel in mind will also help a new team reach its potential sooner. While John Morris does not explicitly mention the performance wheel in his recounting of winning the mixed doubles gold medal, one thing that jumps out at me is his story of a crucial dinner he had with Kaitlyn Lawes where they talked through some team dynamic issues, and then went on to win the Olympic curling trials.

When I read through John Morris’s story, I can see how that team went through the entire performance wheel in days to go on and become Olympic champs. The takeaway message is that a new team should embrace each stage of the team dynamics wheel – especially the conflict that comes with the storming stage, and the subsequent working out of differences with the norming stage – to accelerate the team formation process and achieve their team goals.