Brushing
High-performance brushing in the open stance
This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on the Ontario Curling Council website on 4 October 2017. This is joint work with John Newhook of Dalhousie University. We would like to thank Fraser Reid, former Canadian university champion with Wilfrid Laurier University, and Paige Bown of Team Dominique Vivier, for their demonstrations of brushing in the open stance. As coaches, we ordinarily teach brushing in the open stance to novices. For novice players, the open stance is considerably safer than alternative tactics. In the open stance, the player faces the skip while brushing and the feet are both facing forward, making the open stance much easier to learn for beginning players. Karlee Burgess and brushing partner Emily Zacharias brush a draw during the 2023 Manitoba provincial playdowns. Both athletes are in the closed stance. Photo credit: Connie Laliberte. Before ‘Broomgate’ in 2015, the Rules of Curling stipulated that any brushing motion had to take place fully
A preliminary investigation into knifing
On the afternoon of February 19, 2026 I met with Sean Maw and his research team from the University of Saskatchewan, along with Rob Gordon from World Curling, at the Nutana Curling Club in Saskatoon, SK to conduct some preliminary work into the brushing tactic of knifing, and to continue a profiling survey of a selection of Nutana’s curling stones. Curling stone profiling One of the many variables to be considered when doing on-ice testing of curling equipment – particularly brushes – is the characteristics of the curling stones being used in the tests: both mass and the roughness of their running bands. Mass is trivial to measure with a standard weigh scale; but having a quantitative measure of a stone’s running band requires a surface roughness profilometer, such as the Mitutoyo SJ-410. The video at right illustrates the output of the SJ-410 on a single path across a curling stone’s running band. https://youtu.be/2dFJ8JxPm_g To produce a profile of a
Calibrating the CurlSmart instrumented brush
Frequently, the athletes that I work with on brushing – over 550 since the 2014-2015 season – complain about the CurlSmart instrumented brush for two reasons: it’s, well, heavy. Including the 9V lithium battery, the CurlSmart brush head weighs 534 g, somewhere between 2x and 3x the typical weight of a commercial brush head due to its steel plate construction. The black Cordura nylon fabric on the brush head, which we use for its durability, doesn’t have nearly the same “feel” as a World Curling-approved brush head. Cordura nylon is used on the CurlSmart brush because replacing the fabric on the brush head is a fairly involved procedure that requires disassembling the head, stapling in the new fabric, and reassembling. Moreover, replacing the fabric usually merits a subsequent calibration test of the brush to ensure that the procedure did not impact the brush’s accuracy. Nevertheless, we chose to replace the black Cordura nylon with SportLite+ fabric from Balance Plus in
The physics of curling – with Sean Maw, University of Saskatchewan
This past week, my friend and research colleague Sean Maw, who is the Jerry G. Huff Chair in Innovative Teaching and an Associate Professor in the Ron and Jane Graham School of Professional Development, Division of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, was interviewed by Matt Olson for the University of Saskatchewan’s Signature Series podcasts. In the interview, Sean outlines a number of research problems with respect to the physics of curling and our short-term research goals for the near future. There remains a considerable amount of work before we come to a more complete understanding of the physics of curling, including the impact of brushing. You can listen to the complete interview by clicking on the introduction at left, or you can listen to the podcast on Apple podcasts (and others) by searching for the University of Saskatchewan Signature Series podcasts. Â
Why bunny-hop brushing may not be the advantage you think it is
Increasingly, this season I’m witnessing the adoption by Canadian Junior and U18 teams of a brushing tactic used by some teams – mostly, but not exclusively, women’s teams – on the Grand Slam circuit. I’ve nicknamed that tactic “bunny-hop” brushing as it involves the near brusher jumping during the “push” portion of each stroke from a snowplough position. Most often I see the bunny-hop used on guards and draw-weight shots, where the tactic is employed between the far hog line and where the stone comes to rest. Typically, the bunny-hop is used when the stone requires additional carry, though sometimes the tactic is also used when trying to both extend the carry of a stone and, at the same time, accentuate curl by brushing in the direction of the stone’s rotation. https://youtu.be/o2woYB05zdU?&t=1843 Carole Howald of Team Tirinzoni uses the “bunny-hop” brushing tactic vs Team Homan in the final of the 2025 AMJ Campbell Players’ Championship. Rationale The idea behind the
A brush is not a rock magnet
A brushing tactic I continue to see being used by younger teams is to brush the ice adjacent to the stone when trying to ‘carve’ or accentuate curl. I’m not sure where this tactic began, but there is no point in brushing ice that the running band of the stone will not pass over as the stone continues its trajectory. Brushing to increase curl requires brushing ‘high-side’ (in the direction of the stone’s rotation). Precisely where the stroke begins and ends for optimal effect depends on a number of factors, the most important being the velocity of the stone and the force profile of the athlete(s) doing the brushing. But there are several other variables that may play a role, including the roughness of the stone’s running bands, the ice conditions, and environmental factors (temperature, humidity, dew point) to name just a few. These variables are not completely understood, and we know from testing – at different clubs with various