Curling's most overrated accomplishment
Yeah, that's right, I'm about to drag the eight-ender
Scoring an eight-ender is a once-in-a-lifetime (if you’re lucky) outcome. It’s compared to a perfect game in baseball or a hole-in-one in golf. But maybe it’s a stretch to call it the best accomplishment in curling.
If you’re not sure what an eight-ender is: it’s when all eight of your rocks are in the house, closer than any other opposition stone, and you score eight points, the most possible in an end, and that’s a lot of points.
It is, of course, rarer than a hole-in-one. A hole-in-one is one swing of the club, a delightful mix of luck and skill. An eight-ender requires four players to each of their two throws reach the house. And conversely, the other team either needs to have everything go horribly wrong, or to employ a go-for-broke strategy, or both.
The first eight-ender I ever saw on YouTube was this one at a Grand Slam at the 2006 Players Championship:
Scott and King are both former Scotties champions. This was a Grand Slam, for a fun postmortem: Scott and King both finished 2-2 in their pool. Team Scott lost in tiebreakers, whereas Team King won their tiebreaker and went all the way to the semifinals. Despite being on the business end of an eight, her team still brought home more cash. But the key shot here was King’s last, a true all-in move, ricocheting off her own and trying to stick in a pile of yellow, only to have one of the silliest caroms off a stone you’ll see. She didn’t — and maybe should’ve — just whipped it at an open yellow stone and avoided infamy.
Because that’s what you do when it’s starting to happen. You don’t care about scoring six or seven. You just don’t give up eight.
The closest I’ve ever been was getting in the first six. And wouldn’t you know it, on their seventh rock, they just went and knocked one of ‘em out. Tension over.
The USCA still actively gives out recognition to teams that record an eight-ender. There’s a form you fill out, they ask for picture proof, they send you a special patch to commemorate it, and they put it in the US Curling News magazine. In the most recent edition I just got in the mail this week, they had three documented instances, at Broomstones (just outside Boston), Charlotte and Orlando. Curling Canada does a similar thing. When it comes to competitive play, Wikipedia has a decent listing.
Eight-enders happen for lots of reasons. It can be if the talent between the two teams is rather disparate — especially in terms of strategy. It can happen if the ice is bad/inconsistent. And it can just be bad luck.
But is it an accomplishment? Like I said before, a hole-in-one is rare. So do perfect games in baseball. But I can’t think of its curling parallel. The best I’ve described it is having your foursome all hit a hole-in-one, then the foursome behind you each hit their tee shots into an active volcano.
It’s always going to be a “cool thing” to do, something in curling you’ve never done before. But there are better/sweeter accomplishments, such as winning a bonspiel, or a league, or throwing a quad.
And I will admit: when you have an eight-ender still intact, it does mirror the gravity of a perfect game. You tense up with each shot. You want it to keep going. You forget that it’s not “the best accomplishment ever” but rather one of the rarest. From that perspective, I can respect its sanctity in the game. Achievement isn’t the right word, but curlers don’t like sitting around talking about how they were part of outliers.
(And, again, memo to other teams: just have your vice throw a coupla dang takeouts and you won’t get patched.)
• I saw some videos fly around about Penn State’s college curling scene. It’s great to see the game get more involved at the collegiate level. From experience/anecdotes, it’s hard to introduce it there, and even harder to sustain it. For one, college players are always going to be inexperienced players. Veteran players definitely do not stick around, but may return to their homes and might possibly join a club if it exists. So you’re left with basically enthusiasm and energy, both of which make for good things in the sport:
• It looks like they have glow curling in Denver this year. (I’ve done it before at Sun Parlour CC in Leamington, Ontario. I’d recommend doing it at least once.)
• What, no cup holders?
• This weekend is our club’s inaugural men’s spiel, the Ten Can. Back-to-back bonspiels? Time to test out the ol’ calves. The twist in this men’s spiel is A Event games are all 10 ends. I’m not sweeping, so it should be fun.