The longest games in any sport: Curling

[Unnamed Trialist]

Flipping channels, I see Eurosport has the world curling championships, and I'll watch a Canada game. First time I went to London, went to Brixton because I wanted to see it after the "riots", and all I saw was people watching snooker, from the Crucible. Made me think how in Canada people will watch curling in bars.

I remember during the Vancouver Olympics I worked in the sports department of the city of Barcelona, and since Barcelona had just thought about bidding for the winters, they were all watching carefully. I got countless comments and questions about curling, they were fascinated. But I'm no expert.

Matches average 3 hours. What other sport has an average of 3 hours per match? Is there any other sport that requires such a long viewing time?

I guess the answer is a test match in cricket, seems about it. Then Curling.

You can understand it is a very demanding spectator sport. You have ten ends, sure, you can reduce the ends. You could reduce the stones, like in doubles. But if you want to go watch a full match you have to take like 4 hours out of your day. To sit and watch a full curling match you have to be pretty dedicated to the sport.

[ray]

The shortest form of (international) cricket is Twenty20 at about 3 hours.  The "One-Day International" format would be about 7 hours.  Then as you mention, there's test cricket ...

MLB baseball used to clock in at 3 hours, no ?  It would be less now with the pitch timer.

In golf, I'm not sure how long a given group take to play their 18 holes (maybe 3 hours ?) but a day of televised golf must go at least 6 hours to see all the golfers complete the course.

[Ivan]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Flipping channels, I see Eurosport has the world curling championships, and I'll watch a Canada game. First time I went to London, went to Brixton because I wanted to see it after the "riots", and all I saw was people watching snooker, from the Crucible. Made me think how in Canada people will watch curling in bars.

I remember during the Vancouver Olympics I worked in the sports department of the city of Barcelona, and since Barcelona had just thought about bidding for the winters, they were all watching carefully. I got countless comments and questions about curling, they were fascinated. But I'm no expert.

Matches average 3 hours. What other sport has an average of 3 hours per match? Is there any other sport that requires such a long viewing time?

I guess the answer is a test match in cricket, seems about it. Then Curling.

You can understand it is a very demanding spectator sport. You have ten ends, sure, you can reduce the ends. You could reduce the stones, like in doubles. But if you want to go watch a full match you have to take like 4 hours out of your day. To sit and watch a full curling match you have to be pretty dedicated to the sport.

I've curled for the last 15 years, and initially I thought no way for a 3 hour average length of game.  Then, remembered we just played a 2.5 hour 8 end playoff game.  The "pro" game is 10 ends, so yes, makes sense!  Our regular season has a 1 hour 50 minute curfew and we can usually get 8 ends in.

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, Ivan said:

I've curled for the last 15 years, and initially I thought no way for a 3 hour average length of game.  Then, remembered we just played a 2.5 hour 8 end playoff game.  The "pro" game is 10 ends, so yes, makes sense!  Our regular season has a 1 hour 50 minute curfew and we can usually get 8 ends in.

I don't play but watch a bit and I ask:  do they have a shot clock in competitve rec curling or is it an etiquette rule to get stones off in a timely manner?

I believe that they put the shot clock in before the free guard rule but prior to that it seemed like some ends would go pretty quickly with a steady stream of peeling guards and then blanks in an attempt to score more than one point.  Frankly, it was boring as hell to watch.  But the moment a miss happened then things would bog down with think-tanking on strategy.  Your thoughts from your experience?

[Unnamed Trialist]

2 hours ago, Ivan said:

I've curled for the last 15 years, and initially I thought no way for a 3 hour average length of game.  Then, remembered we just played a 2.5 hour 8 end playoff game.  The "pro" game is 10 ends, so yes, makes sense!  Our regular season has a 1 hour 50 minute curfew and we can usually get 8 ends in.

Tell us where you curl, if you don't mind. 

So your curfew means a game can be cut off before you get to the 8th end? Like a rival will time waste so you don't get your final hammer?

[Unnamed Trialist]

3 hours ago, ray said:

The shortest form of (international) cricket is Twenty20 at about 3 hours.  The "One-Day International" format would be about 7 hours.  Then as you mention, there's test cricket ...

MLB baseball used to clock in at 3 hours, no ?  It would be less now with the pitch timer.

In golf, I'm not sure how long a given group take to play their 18 holes (maybe 3 hours ?) but a day of televised golf must go at least 6 hours to see all the golfers complete the course.

I was thinking about live spectator sports, in golf (which I'll also watch, but not in person), you just watch a hole, or follow one player. Like watching Tour de France.

I just checked, last season in MLB average game length was 2:42… about 20 min shorter than the previous season, for the reason you cite.

 

[Ivan]

1 hour ago, BearcatSA said:

I don't play but watch a bit and I ask:  do they have a shot clock in competitve rec curling or is it an etiquette rule to get stones off in a timely manner?

I believe that they put the shot clock in before the free guard rule but prior to that it seemed like some ends would go pretty quickly with a steady stream of peeling guards and then blanks in an attempt to score more than one point.  Frankly, it was boring as hell to watch.  But the moment a miss happened then things would bog down with think-tanking on strategy.  Your thoughts from your experience?

No shot clock in rec curling, but a curfew if you will, mainly because there is more than one draw in an evening and people don't usually want to get home past midnight, especially those that have to work in the morning.  In our league, it is usually you can't start an end after 1:50.

I didn't play before the free guard rule, but you have all kinds.  Some like to discuss every shot, some play quick.  My teams always liked to play quick.  A lot depends on the makeup of the teams.  My teams have played together for a while so me and the vice or skip know what each other likes to do so our discussions are pretty quick.

Edited April 3 by Ivan
grammar

[Ivan]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Tell us where you curl, if you don't mind. 

So your curfew means a game can be cut off before you get to the 8th end? Like a rival will time waste so you don't get your final hammer?

Don't mind at all.  I play in my hometown of Welland, 2 leagues, 2 different teams.  When I was working I also played in Burlington.

Yes, a game could be cut off before the 8th end, but rivals don't really waste time on purpose.  Curling is a gentleman's game, very sporting I find.  No curfew in playoffs.

Edit: I say gentleman's game, but lots of women play at our club.  The Canadian College Women's Champs (Niagara College) from last year curl at our club.  Nice girls, very talented! Great to play against players that good. 

Edited April 3 by Ivan

[Kingston]

6 minutes ago, Ivan said:

Curling is a gentleman's game, very sporting I find.  No curfew in playoffs.

I've only had the chance to try it a couple of times but I enjoyed it tremendously.

The tradition where the winners buy the losers a round after the game is also a great way to encourage new (and thus poorly skilled) players to give it a go!

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, Ivan said:

Don't mind at all.  I play in my hometown of Welland, 2 leagues, 2 different teams.  When I was working I also played in Burlington.

Yes, a game could be cut off before the 8th end, but rivals don't really waste time on purpose.  Curling is a gentleman's game, very sporting I find.  No curfew in playoffs.

Edit: I say gentleman's game, but lots of women play at our club.  The Canadian College Women's Champs (Niagara College) from last year curl at our club.  Nice girls, very talented! Great to play against players that good. 

Admirable, and a great sport to be playing. Thanks for telling us.

[Unnamed Trialist]

Unfortunately I did not get the men's final live. 

In any case, that last stone was unreal, you have to admit it was incredibly good, clutch, what can you say?. Canada had done pretty well everything it needed to do, really hard to second guess them. But you can see how you'd be disappointed, always losing to that same guy.

Have to say too, that Homan final stone in the women's final 9th end to grab a 3 was also incredible, an amazing shot.