Winter Olympics: Scoring in curling
The key to understanding the scoring of curling is learning the vocabulary. The “house” is the round target, while the “button” is the bulls-eye in the middle of the target.
A match features 10 “ends” – think of them as innings – and each team alternates throwing eight stones.
In order to score a point, your stone must come closer to the button than your opponent. If a team has two stones closer to the button, then it gets two points – and so on. Only stones inside the house count.
Only one team can score on each end. If neither team has a stone in the house, neither team gets a point at that end. The best possible score at one end is 8-0.
The team that did not score in the previous end holds “hammer” – think of it as the bottom of an inning – and gets to deliver the last stone.