What's The Score?

One of many confusing things to a non-curler is how to read the scoreboard.  The Club has had a number of scoreboards over the years.  We needed new scoreboards when we moved to Ferndale.  Todd Gault volunteered to build them.  He bought the lumber, paint and other supplies.  Carried everything to his basement and built the scoreboards you see and use today.

Todd made one mistake…the finished products were so big he could not get them out of the basement!  The scoreboards had to be partially disassembled and a wall in his house had to be partially removed.  Thanks Todd for a well done job. 

During the move to West Bloomfield in 1979, The Club had a friend and fellow curler in Windsor who had connections with the Labatt’s beer company.  The company gave us the scoreboards – we just had to go to Windsor to get them.  Someone must have a story about getting through U.S. customs.

When The Club was on Forest Ave. in Detroit, there had been three generations of scoreboards.  We found photographs from 1957, 1945 and 1938.  The 1957 boards went up to 20.

The boards used in the 1940's are interesting.  Notice that they only tell you the current score and end.  No indication of when the points were scored.  Games in this time frame played 12 – 16 ends.  

The 1938 scoreboards tallied points up to 30.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s games were not played by specified number of ends – they played until one team scored 31 points.

Scoring when the game was played outside was accomplished by the skip notching the points into his broom handle.  This led to a number of problems:  a weakened broom-handle; wood shavings on the ice and distrust between teams!

May the score be with you.  Angus