By John Hodge
Unless you’re the ultimate curling purist, you probably don’t like blank ends. We can all think of at least one time we sat down to watch a curling game — live or on television — and had to wait close to an hour for points to be scored.
The Curling Group, which purchased the Grand Slam of Curling in 2024, has made no secret of its desire to help innovate the game. Nic Sulsky, the organization’s co-founder and CEO, has heard plenty of arguments about why blank ends are valid, though he sees them as an obstacle to attracting new fans.
"Zeros on the scoreboard don't make for an exciting experience, especially to the new category of curling fan that we want to bring into the sport. A casual fan, I believe, will get lost if they're watching multiple blank ends in a row. I just think they'll be like, 'What's the point of this?'" Sulsky said via telephone on Wednesday.
"I understand the strategic value (of blanks) from time to time, but I'm a hardcore sports fan in the classic sense, and I like points. Fans like points. You don't see too many 3-0 football games. There's something around the excitement that comes to a game when there are points being scored.”
There are many potential solutions to reducing the number of blank ends that occur in modern high-level curling. I’ve heard several proposals, all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Teams could be forced to give up the hammer after blanking an end or blanking consecutive ends. The five-rock rule could become the seven-rock rule or the nine-rock rule. The free guard zone could extend into the house for the first five, seven, or nine rocks. Teams could be ineligible to blank an end unless they’ve thrown a minimum requirement of draws or guards.
Sulsky’s anti-blank stance was affirmed during last year’s KIOTI National in St. John’s, N.L., when Mike McEwen played hometown star Brad Gushue.
Knowing they were in hostile territory, McEwen and his team entered the ice surface with Colton Flasch, the team’s third, wearing a Saskatchewan flag wrapped around his shoulders. One of the Marsh twins proudly carried an "ugly stick" — a musical instrument native to Newfoundland that typically consists of a broom handle adorned with random household items.
With music blaring, the sold-out crowd of 7,000 fans gave McEwen’s rink a standing ovation that created an electric atmosphere, which was immediately followed by three consecutive blanks.
Yikes.
"That venue was dead (after those blanks)," Sulsky said. “It was silent. I was standing there watching the game, and I'm watching the crowd energy just fizzle. It didn't fizzle because they weren’t making great shots to drive the blanks, it fizzled because it was 0-0. It was blanks! It's not exciting, so I would say that game began my mission to eliminate the blank from curling.”
Though Sulsky believes blanks will never fully go away, he seems to agree that the biggest hindrance to curling’s entertainment value is the dreaded planned first-end blank. There’s nothing worse than a heavyweight tilt between two top teams starting off with what is essentially a last-minute practice session — one draw followed by 14 nose hits, then a rollout to secure the blank.
It’s 2025. We live in an attention economy flooded by entertainment, many sources of which are free and readily available at all times.
It would be unthinkable for the first five minutes of an NHL playoff game to feature two teams aimlessly passing the puck back and forth down the length of the ice, making no attempt to score. The Grey Cup would never start with two teams punting the ball back and forth on first down to feel each other out. The Toronto Blue Jays, who are currently in the middle of a playoff run, don’t start their games with 15 minutes of extra batting practice.
In any other context, starting a game with something objectively boring would be unthinkable. In curling, it’s common practice. Teams shouldn’t be allowed to intentionally waste the first part of a game with a so-called "practice end," especially in a marquee matchup. It’s perfectly understandable why players do it — it allows them to bank time and get a fresh read on the ice — but it kills a lot of the anticipation that leads into a game.
At the upcoming CO-OP Tour Challenge, which is set for Nisku, Alta., from Oct. 14-19, teams will each be permitted to blank a maximum of one end. If either team blanks a second end, the hammer will be awarded to the opposition.
With many of the world’s top teams set to participate, including names like Rachel Homan, Bruce Mouat, Anna Hasselborg, Matt Dunstone, Silvana Tirinzoni, Yannick Schwaller, Kerri Einarson, and Niklas Edin, it’ll be interesting to see how teams approach this new strategy. If nothing else, this rule change should bring an end to "practice ends."
"Allowing teams to only have one blank per game is going to eliminate (the intentional first-end blank). A team is going to want to keep that (blank) in their back pocket," Sulsky said. "I don't think it makes sense for the sport to say, 'Blanks are only allowed in the seventh end,' or, 'There are no blanks allowed in the first end.'
"I think the idea of letting the teams figure this out for themselves is best. They have one blank, which is kinda fun because sometimes teams do get forced into blanking an end, taking one, or a steal. If a team now is going to blank an end because they're forced to, but that's their one blank that they have, now strategically they have to change their game plan a little bit."
Not all blanks are equal, of course. Few people would complain about a first-end blank preceded by a ton of rocks in play that required multiple brilliant hits to remove. However, planned first-end blanks — or "practice ends" — must become a relic of the past.
Though it remains to be seen how things go at the CO-OP Tour Challenge, Sulsky suspects this rule change won't just be a one-off.
"I think that this rule is probably here to stay," he said. "I don't foresee a future where we will eliminate blanks, I personally like the idea of one per team. I think it's a fair compromise, but if another idea pops up that seems like an interesting one to test to make the game more exciting, more fun for the casual sports fan, then we'll totally look at it.
"I think from a blank-specific perspective, I have a suspicion this one's going to be sticking around for a while."
