Everything you need to know about the Curling World Cup

The Curling World Cup can now be followed, on its brand new media channels, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and at www.curlingworldcup.com

Each event, including the Grand Final, will have competitions for women, men and mixed doubles and will last five days, starting on a Wednesday and finishing on a Sunday.

Games will be eight ends as standard and, in each discipline, there will be two groups of four. Teams will play a double round robin, with the teams finishing top of their groups moving into finals that will decide the winners.

In a move away from other international curling championships, there will be no extra ends to decide tied games, instead, there will be a one stone shoot-out, for each team, with the team closest to the button winning the game.

Expanding on that idea, teams will be handed three points for a win in eight ends and two points if they win after a shoot-out. The team that loses the shoot-out gets a single point and a losing team after eight ends gets zero points.

An additional single stone shoot-out will take place between teams tied for first place at the end of the round robin.

Other variations are:

• Coaches will be positioned at ice level and can interact with the athletes between ends;
• and, rather than thinking time allocated for the full game, teams will have time allocated for each end:
• For women’s and men’s games, from ends one to four, teams will have four minutes thinking time and four minutes 15 seconds from ends five to eight.
• In mixed doubles, it will be two minutes 50 seconds and then three minutes.

For the first three legs, the host Member Association for each event will receive places. Then, the world rankings will be used to qualify the highest ranked Member Associations from each of the Americas, European and Pacific-Asia zones.

Another two teams, for each discipline, will be selected by the World Curling Federation Board, based on broadcast interest, marketing potential and/or promotional opportunities.

This process decides the teams for all three legs and Member Associations can choose to send the same athletes to each event, or have different athletes compete.

Groups will be determined based on a Curling World Cup ranking list that is being developed. Before each leg the groups will be allocated with the top-ranked team going into the first group, then the second team into the second group and so on, until all teams are allocated.

The teams for the first three legs in 2018-2019 are:

For the Grand Final, the host country, the three winners from the first three legs and the current world curling champions will compete. They will be joined by a ‘special invite’ team – such as the reigning Olympic champions – and the two highest ranked teams from the Curling World Cup ranking list that have not yet qualified.

If a team of athletes from one Member Association wins more than one leg of the Curling World Cup, they will receive one space at the Grand Final for their Member Association. The Curling World Cup ranking list would then be used to determine the other qualifiers. However, if three different teams win each leg from the same Member Association, those teams would all qualify for the Grand Final.

This is the only international curling event where teams will wear their countries flag and colours with prize money available. A total of $USD 165,000 will be distributed at each of the first three events. This will then rise to $USD 283,500 for the Grand Final. The money will be allocated as such:

Legs one to three

Women and Men	Mixed Doubles
$1,500 for each round robin win	$750 for each round robin win
$18,000 total for round robin per group	$9,000 total for round robin per group
$20,000 for the winner	$10,000 for the winner
$10,000 for the runner-up	$5,000 for the runner-up
$30,000 total for play-offs	$15,000 total for play-offs
$66,000 total per discipline	$33,000 total per discipline

Grand Final

Women and Men	Mixed Doubles
$3,000 for each round robin win	$1,500 for each round robin win
$36,000 total for round robin per group	$18,000 total for round robin per group
$27,000 for the winner	$13,500 for the winner
$13,000 for the runner-up	$6,500 for the runner-up
$40,000 total for play-offs	$20,000 total for play-offs
$112,000 total per discipline	$56,000 total per discipline

You can follow the work of the World Curling Federation on Twitter, Instagram (@worldcurling) and Facebook (/WorldCurlingFederation) and by searching the hashtag #curling

Also, you can follow the Curling World Cup on Twitter, Instagram (@CurlingWorldCup) and Facebook (/CurlingWorldCup) and at www.curlingworldcup.com