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By Jonathan Brazeau

The Grand Slam of Curling is making an "extra" change for the HearingLife Canadian Open.

Extra ends will return for tiebreaker and playoff games at the fourth Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, which begins Tuesday at Saskatoon's Merlis Belsher Place.

Draw-to-the-button shootouts will remain in place during the round-robin portion, should a game exceed the regulation eight ends.

Shootouts replaced extra ends for round-robin and tiebreaker games beginning with the season-opening AMJ Masters. The format was extended to the playoffs for the following two events: the CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe.

Both tournaments featured playoff games decided by mere millimetres. Rachel Homan covered the pin during the CO-OP Tour Challenge women’s semifinals and advanced to the final after Anna Hasselborg's shooter landed on the button but stopped short of the pinhole. The KIOTI GSOC Tahoe men’s final saw Bruce Mouat outdraw Matt Dunstone by three millimetres to win the title.

Brent Laing, who is part of the Grand Slam of Curling's competition committee, shared why extra ends are making a comeback, plus insight into the other changes that have taken place in the series this season.

FIRST END: Although shootouts have led to thrilling finishes in the playoffs, and Laing said the draw to the button in the Tahoe final was "pretty awesome," there was some pushback from the curlers.

Being that it is also an Olympic year and teams are ramping up with the 2026 Winter Games only a couple of months away, the competition committee agreed to dial back on the shootouts, with tiebreakers and playoffs featuring a more traditional format.

“We're not trying to be tyrants here,” Laing said. “We're not trying to be dictators. We are listening, and that was kind of the overwhelming feedback from the players. Maybe there's a method to our madness, and this isn't what the intention was. It's like when you negotiate, you ask for the moon and you don't really want that. You want something way less.

"That's not what happened here, but I think what most of the players said is, ‘Hey, look, we're good with it.’ Most players love the 3-2-1, like the three points for regulation, two points for the shootout win or even extra-end win and one for the extra-end loss. I think now they were saying, ‘Hey, if we do it in the round-robin, OK. It helps keep things on time, it helps the icemakers, it helps the TV window, all those things, which are all positives. But when we get to the playoffs, we want to keep it traditional curling, and we want to have that extra end.’ So for Saskatoon, that's the plan.”

SECOND END: Tightening up the length of the game to fit into an ideal TV window was one reason why shootouts have replaced extra ends, but predictability also played a factor.

As mentioned in a previous edition of Eight Ends, over the previous four seasons, the team that held the hammer in the extra end won 82.6 per cent of the time. In games that have gone to a shootout this season, that number has plummeted to almost an even split at 52 per cent.

Curling isn’t the only sport that has altered its overtime rules in recent history. The NFL's overtime used to be sudden death, which usually meant the team that won the coin toss just needed to get into field-goal range. Now, both teams are guaranteed one possession on offence. The NHL has reduced the number of players on the ice for its overtime from five per side to four to three, with a shootout added in 2005.

Laing made it clear they’re not trying to ruin the game, and they’re not going to be right all the time, but they are trying things out to see if it makes the game more exciting and more marketable.

“I've asked a few people: What other sport where you go extra time, does one team have a huge advantage?” he said. “Everybody's going to jump down my throat here and say, ‘Yeah, but we've earned that advantage.’ It's like, did you? You were the higher-ranked team, you got to pick rocks, you drew to the button for hammer, you controlled the hammer the whole game, and you ended up tied. They did their job too. They started without the hammer, and they got tied. Why do you continue to get the advantage, right?"

THIRD END: When the 3-2-1 points system was implemented for the AMJ Masters round-robin, it looked like it had solved the problem of eliminating teams from playoff contention based on last stone draw totals. Four men’s teams were tied for the final two playoff spots, leading to two tiebreaker games, while the women’s division saw all eight teams advance straight through on points without any tiebreakers needed. No teams were eliminated based on LSD.

The following two events have been tiebreaker madness, with teams eliminated based on LSD.

“Hopefully, there are people a lot smarter than me with numbers and the odds and all that of tiebreakers and how to avoid them, because it's an imperfect system,” Laing said. “I won't use the words I really feel, but it's an imperfect system.

“We want matchups, so we, as a sport and as a group, have decided that we like the round-robin because we want to know that Friday night, (Mike) McEwen plays (John) Epping in Saskatoon. We know that Team Saskatoon plays Friday night, and we like that. We want to do that. ... (Brad) Gushue, it looks like this is going to be his last Slam. He's not going to be in the Players’, and I think he plays probably every night draw. People still work for a living, so we want the big names and the big draws to be at times when people can come to the arena. The round-robin allows that.

"The problem with the round-robin is ... it leads to too many ties and too many uncertainties. I don't think that the point system necessarily solves that."

Triple knockout has been used for some Grand Slam of Curling events in the past. The 16-team modified triple knockout is designed to qualify eight teams without the need for tiebreaker games or LSD rankings. The format has its own issues, as curlers, fans, broadcast partners, etc., don't know in advance when teams are playing, which can lead to scheduling headaches.

FOURTH END: The Grand Slam of Curling experimented with no tiebreaker games for its first two events of the 2023-24 season. If teams were tied for the final playoff spots, LSD rankings alone determined who advanced and who went home. This proved to be unpopular with the players, particularly as Gushue’s record 27-event playoff streak came to an end, and tiebreaker games returned for the next event.

The issue with tiebreaker games is that they require squeezing an extra draw into the schedule that may not be played. Sometimes it's not until the conclusion of the final round-robin draw Friday night, when fans are already leaving the building, that it's determined there will be tiebreakers Saturday morning and what the matchups are.

Depending on when the quarterfinals are scheduled, tiebreaker winners may have to go right back out on the ice to play again and take on one of the top seeds. Is it any surprise that tiebreaker winners have a 1-8 record in the quarterfinals this season?

“That's one we haven't figured out, and here's what I do know: You end up in a tiebreaker, you're almost always there for a reason. It's because you're not quite there yet, or you're not a team that's good enough to qualify directly, or you didn't have your best week, so I'm not surprised that when you get to the quarterfinal against the top seed that you're gonna lose a lot,” Laing said.

“That's sport, and there's a reason the top seed's the top seed. There's a reason that the tiebreaker team, when they end up playing Mouat or Homan, guess what? They're gonna lose a lot, but I still struggle with the idea, and we as a committee and as a sport still struggle with the idea that, yeah, we want tiebreakers. We don't want to send everybody home based on (LSD), but right now it's not perfect. … Teams know the rules going in. You know how important the LSD is, but it's not perfect.”

FIFTH END: The Curling Group CEO and co-founder Nic Sulsky has made it quite clear how much he hates blank ends, especially to start a game.

The Grand Slam of Curling, which is owned and operated by The Curling Group, first experimented with the idea of curbing blank ends during last season’s Masters. The series implemented a rule specifically for that event where a team couldn’t blank two consecutive ends, or else they would lose the hammer.

A different rule was introduced this season, starting at the CO-OP Tour Challenge in October, where a team was allowed to blank only one end per game. A second blank at any other point in the game resulted in a loss of the hammer.

The rule has led to a strategy shift, as teams that find themselves in a blank situation early have sometimes opted to score a single point and save their blank opportunity for a later end.

Laing’s overall sense is that the rule has worked as intended, encouraging teams to generate offence out of the gate.

“It's made the game better. That's the one rule change that I think has done exactly what we hoped it would do," Laing said. "Everybody says we hate the blank, and Nic says he hates the blank, so I get why people say that. That's not the No. 1 reason, and it's not the blank end that's the enemy."

As Laing explained, what they are trying to discourage is when teams intentionally blank the first end with back-and-forth takeouts — taking out the excitement from the building along with it.

"For the first 15 minutes, I get there and (MC) Pierce (Clarke) gets everybody fired up. We're sliding through tunnels, we've got a light show, we’ve got music playing, everybody's excited, and three of the four games blank the first end and it's like this sport sucks. What am I watching here?" Laing said. "I've said this to a million people, it'd be the equivalent of you and me in a tennis match. People showed up to watch us play. I say, Jonny, first game here when you serve, I'm not going to return your serve. Then, when I serve, you don't return mine either. Then we'll start the game. Well, that's not cool.

"That's not curling, and I know it has been for years, but I love this rule. I think 95 per cent of the feedback I've got on this rule has been positive. It makes a better, more exciting product for the fans, and that's what it was supposed to do. I haven't seen any ends wasted. Yeah, there are still blanks, but there are teams trying to play early, things don't work out and you blank an end. That's fine. It does fundamentally change the strategy again, but I think it does it in a good way."

SIXTH END: Is the competition committee looking at ways to differentiate the Grand Slams from each other or even ways to make them stand out from other tour events?

That’s one of the “million-dollar questions,” according to Laing, but first off, he would like to see the Grand Slam of Curling events in the same order every season.

“The fact that I don't know without checking, I know it's the Canadian Open because I've checked, but I should know what the order is,” he said. “I can tell you the order of the Slams in professional golf, and guess what? I've never played in one, I've never won one, but I can't tell you the order in curling, and I've played in these since, well, since like 2004. I've been around the Slams for over 20 years, and I can't tell you the order we're going to play them in.

“How do you create tradition? How do you differentiate if you don't even know the order they're played in? We won the Masters twice (in one year) because the order changed, so let's start there.”

As for a different format, Laing pointed to the NCAA’s March Madness tournament or even Formula 1, where the round-robin could act like qualifying, leading to a single-elimination bracket.

“Curling's like, ‘Oh, that's not fair,’ and it's like, why is that not fair? Eventually, it comes down to if you lose, you're out," Laing said. "Right now we're OK because that happens when you get to the final eight, even though you're 2-2, or probably more likely I'm 2-2, and you're 4-0. I beat you and you're out. Why is that fair when we're up in arms if somebody goes 0-3 in a shorter round-robin, and I'm 3-0 and you knock me out? So what? That's kind of exciting.

"At some point, it gets to be that way, so maybe that would be a way to differentiate.

SEVENTH END: The ranking points have been a hot topic of late, with the qualification cutoff for the Players' Championship on Monday.

The Grand Slam of Curling season finale has moved up from April to January, and with some top teams playing fewer events in the fall as they prepare for the Winter Olympics, the field for the event could look different from previous years.

Laing doesn't believe the qualification procedure will change for the Players' Championship, though.

“What I think it's going to do is it's going to help the rest of curling, like the regular World Curling Tour, which is a great thing because teams are going to realize that I can't just play five events when three of them are Slams because if we don't do well in the hardest events in the world, we're not gonna get into the Players’,” he said. “... There's lots of great spiels. I want to see Penticton supported, I want to see the event that Ryan Harnden's got going in Sault Ste. Marie with good sponsors, good purse, good ice. The fans are coming out and they're struggling to get the right weekend to get enough teams up there."

Laing said he would prefer it if it were like in tennis, where teams would have to play a certain number of tour events at each series level.

“We want to make sure as a group that whatever we decide that it helps the World Curling Tour and curling in general, and it doesn't make it impossible to get into Slams and it doesn't make it so that teams only play Slams. We don't want that," he said. “… If you're from Alberta, you have to play either Red Deer or pick another spiel there, even if you're a top 10 team, and the local committee's like awesome, we've got Team Brad Jacobs coming to our event. They would never come otherwise. That's good for curling."

He added: "That's another one that's on the list with certain ideas and some conversation. It hasn't come to the forefront yet, but it will, and we've had a lot of conversation about the Players' Championship this year, especially recently, just because there are going to be some people that might qualify without having played in a Grand Slam. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know, but it's a thing this year. Those are all things that are coming to the forefront as the schedule changes.”

EIGHTH END: With so many stakeholders involved in the sport, from governing bodies to tour committees, Laing would like to get everyone on the same page to figure out the schedule so events don't overlap, particularly with the arrival of Rock League, The Curling Group’s professional league set to debut in April.

"We can't have Rachel Homan not allowed to play in the Scotties because we scheduled it wrong. We knew when the Olympics were a long time ago, so let's schedule the Scotties in a place where Rachel can go play," Laing said. "Same as John Epping. (He's) not going to be in the Players’ Championship because he wants to get to the Brier in St. John's, and the Northern Ontario provincials are during the Players’ Championship.

“Let's get that figured out, especially with Rock League coming in. It needs some organization, and I know Nic and The Curling Group have been working super hard on that, so as that gets sorted, then things get a little bit more clear in terms of how do we qualify teams for all of these different things.”