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70 free Curling trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This curling trivia quiz slides from a 1511 stone found in a drained Scottish pond to Sweden's record-setting skips. The basics come first: what the house, button, hacks, hog line and hammer are, why sweeping makes a stone run farther and straighter, and how an end is scored. Then the equipment: why the granite comes only from Ailsa Craig and a Welsh quarry, how heavy a stone must be, what brooms were made of before the 1950s, and the 'broomgate' row over fabric that steered stones too well. History and rules questions cover Bruegel's 1565 peasants, the Kilsyth club of 1716, the Royal Caledonian rulebook, Canada's iron stones, the retroactive 1924 Olympic gold, the free guard zone and the Spirit of Curling. The people include Kevin Martin, Jennifer Jones, Anette Norberg, Niklas Edin, Anna Hasselborg, Rhona Martin and Eve Muirhead, plus the Brier, the Scotties, wheelchair and mixed doubles curling and a James Bond cameo. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on curling, its Olympic history, governing body and individual curlers, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. BrainPickle has separate quizzes on the Winter Olympics and on Scotland.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the target area at the end of a curling sheet called?
The house
It is made of a centre circle and three rings, 4, 8 and 12 feet across, painted or laid in vinyl beneath the ice.
Q 02How many players are on a curling team in the standard game?
Four
Each player throws two of the team's eight stones per end; the skip calls the shots and usually throws last.
Q 03What are curling stones made of?
Granite
The rock comes from just two places on earth: an island in the Firth of Clyde and a Welsh quarry.
Q 04What is a single round of play, in which both teams throw all their stones, called?
An end
Games are usually eight or ten ends, and if the score is level extra ends break the tie.
Q 05What is the last stone thrown in an end called?
The hammer
It is a big tactical advantage; the team that fails to score in one end gets it in the next.
Q 06What is the team captain who calls the shots called?
The skip
The word survives from Scots; when the skip throws, the vice-skip takes over the broom at the far end.
Q 07What does sweeping the ice in front of a moving stone do?
Makes it travel farther and straighter
Brushing briefly melts a thin film of water, cutting friction; deciding when to sweep is the heart of the game's teamwork.
Q 08What are modern curling brush handles usually made of?
Hollow fibreglass or carbon fibre tubes
Lighter and stiffer than wood, they let sweepers move faster and press harder on the ice.
Q 09Which abbey's records hold the first written mention of a stones-on-ice contest, in February 1541?
Paisley
The Renfrewshire abbey's note predates the first printed use of the word curling by nearly eighty years.
Q 10What is the date on the world's oldest known curling stone?
1511
It shares a museum in Stirling with the world's oldest football.
Q 11Which painter's 1565 winter scenes show Flemish peasants playing a curling-like game?
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Their game was Bavarian curling, or ice stock sport, played without brooms and with a vertical handle on the stone.
Q 12Why is curling nicknamed 'the roaring game'?
The sound the stones make over the pebbled ice
The pebble is a spray of frozen water droplets that gives the ice an orange-peel texture for the stone to ride on.
Q 13The word 'curling' first appeared in print in 1620 in which Scottish city?
Perth
Q 21How long is a curling sheet, roughly?
146 to 150 feet
It is only 14.5 to 16.5 feet wide, and the ice surface is held at around minus 5 degrees Celsius.
Q 22What is the centre circle of the house called?
The button
A stone must at least touch the outer 12-foot ring to count; otherwise the rings are just an aid to judging which stone is closer.
Q 23What are the foot-holds a thrower pushes off from called?
The hacks
They sit 12 feet behind the centre of each house; a right-hander puts the right foot in the left hack.
It was in the preface and verses of a poem by Henry Adamson; the sport's world body is now based in the same city.
Q 14Which Scottish town's club claims to be the world's first, formed in 1716?
Kilsyth
It also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond, a shallow dammed pool at Colzium, and it is still going.
Q 15Which body does the IOC recognise as having written the first official rules of curling?
The Royal Caledonian
Founded as the Grand Caledonian in 1838, it is known as the mother club of curling and spawned today's world federation.
Q 16What did central Canadian curlers often throw instead of stones until the early 1900s?
Irons
Canada is the only country known to have done it; the stone-versus-iron split still had to be settled when the Brier was created in the 1920s.
Q 17Where was the first world curling championship, the Scotch Cup, held in 1959?
Falkirk and Edinburgh, Scotland
The Canadian team from Regina skipped by Ernie Richardson won it, and it was open only to men.
Q 18Since which Winter Olympics has curling been a full medal sport?
1998 Nagano
It had been a demonstration sport in 1932, 1988 and 1992 before finally being added to the programme.
Q 19Which country was retroactively awarded the first Olympic curling gold, from the 1924 Chamonix Games?
Great Britain
The IOC ruled in 2006 that the outdoor 1924 event counted as official; Sweden took silver and France bronze, and they were the only three teams entered.
Q 20At which Winter Olympics was mixed doubles curling first contested?
2018 Pyeongchang
It had been rejected for 2010 as underdeveloped; Canada's Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris won the first gold.
Q 24A stone must be released before its front edge crosses which mark on the ice?
The hog line
It must also clear the far hog line or it is 'hogged' and removed from play.
Q 25What is the 'Eye on the Hog'?
An electronic handle that detects hog-line violations
Lights on the handle glow green for a legal throw or red for a foul; at about US$650 each they are beyond most clubs.
Q 26Between what weights must a competition curling stone fall?
17.24 to 19.96 kg
That is 38 to 44 pounds, with a maximum circumference of 36 inches; only a narrow ring on the concave bottom touches the ice.
Q 27Which Scottish island supplies the rock for curling stones?
Ailsa Craig
It sits in the Firth of Clyde, is now a bird sanctuary full of gannets, and is nicknamed Paddy's Milestone for being halfway between Belfast and Glasgow.
Q 28The other source of rock for curling stones is the Trefor quarry, in which country?
Wales
Its pink, blue and grey stone goes exclusively to the Canada Curling Stone Company, which supplied the 2002 Olympics.
Q 29Which Mauchline firm has made curling stones from Ailsa Craig granite since 1851?
Kays of Scotland
It has supplied every Olympic stone since 2006; a 2020 harvest from the island yielded about 3,000 tons.
Q 30What were most curling brooms made of before the 1950s?
Corn strands
Fern Marchessault of Montreal inverted the straw in the centre in 1958 to create the 'Blackjack'; brushes eventually won out.