Delivery
Delivery analysis clinic – Guelph Curling Club – 15 March 2026
Throwing Rocks Consulting Services Ltd plans to offer a delivery analysis clinic at the Guelph Curling Club on Sunday, March 15 2026 between 6:15pm and 8:15pm. The Guelph Curling Club is located at 816 Woolwich Street in Guelph, Ontario. In addition to an introduction (or review) of delivery analysis fundamentals, participants will gain experience with a delivery analysis setup and its equipment, and with using OnForm’s multi-camera analysis tools with which to analyze a curling delivery. Cost for the clinic is $40. This clinic is targeted towards coaches who work with competitive U15, U18, U20, or adult teams; it is not intended for instructors who work with little rocks or novices to the sport. Participation is limited to 12 coaches and will run only if at least 8 coaches have signed up. To secure your spot, the $40 fee must be paid in advance of the clinic. The fee will be reimbursed if the clinic is cancelled. Additional participants will
Delivery by athletes with opposite ocular dominance
What is ocular dominance? Ocular dominance is the tendency of the brain to prefer visual input of one eye over the other. While like many other mammals human beings have binocular vision with which to judge distances, humans almost universally prefer visual input from one eye over the other. According to Wikipedia, about 70% of people are right-eye dominant, and 29% are left-eye; why this is so is still not understood. In everyday circumstances most individuals don’t give their ocular dominance much thought; but in sport, eye dominance can play a significant role, especially in highly accurate tasks such as aiming. Sports such as darts, archery, billiards, shooting, and curling can be impacted by eye dominance, particularly when the athlete’s dominant eye is the opposite of their dominant (throwing) hand, which is sometimes termed cross-dominance. Celeste Gauthier, who throws 3rd stones for Team Émilie Lovitt, throwing an out-turn draw. Note that Celeste’s left eye is directly above the centre of
Delivery analysis using OnForm Multi-cam support
A recent feature of the OnForm video analysis platform is its support for multi-camera input. The individual devices have to be connected to the same WIFI network, but once paired a “master” device can control the recording of all of the auxiliary devices that are providing alternative camera views. In this brief article, I wish to document my equipment setup for delivery analysis. At this practice, I’m looking at two things: slide leg position, and arm extension during the release motion, that are difficult to analyze when standing either directly in front of, or behind, the athlete. Delivery Analysis Setup For delivery analysis, I use a Ryobi steel mitre sawhorse with collapsible legs, with an iPhone mount, in landscape mode, mounted in its centre. A green light laser, positioned on the far tee line, points to the hack, forming the line of delivery (LOD). The plumb line – actually just a red hockey skate shoelace with a carabiner as a
Toe-slide versus flat-foot slide: what is better for the athlete?
Perhaps there is no other sport that causes unilateral, repetitive strain injuries more than curling. A 2004 study of competitive players competing in two USA National events found a high incidence of back, knee, hip, wrist, and shoulder injuries amongst competitors of both genders: Sweeping the stone (55%) and delivering the stone (50%) were the skills most provocative of symptoms (fig 2A–C). Collectively, symptoms of knee (54%), back (33%), and shoulder pain (20%) were most prevalent (table 2). Knee pain was most often reported in the ‘‘tuck’’ knee, which is typically flexed well beyond 90˚ during stone delivery. Sixty-two per cent of those with knee pain were symptomatic in their tuck [slide foot] knee, while 31% complained of bilateral discomfort. Reeser and Berg, September 2004 Our intent in writing this article was two-fold: one, to make other coaches aware of the prevalence of anterior knee pain in youth curling, particularly with young women, and two, to recommend that athletes who
Ten reasons why an interval time might be inaccurate
This article is joint work with John Newhook of Dalhousie University in Halifax. Using interval, or “split” times, can benefit the delivering team because an interval time provides a proxy measurement for the velocity of the stone at release. With an interval time, the two brushers can utilize the time to assist with their weight judgement, and the delivering player can use a split time to assist their delivery with respect to weight control. However, relying on splits – either back-line to near hog line or, less commonly, tee-line to near hog line – can be complicated. One complication is that, to be more effective, the team must map split times into other timing systems, such as hog-to-hog times or hog-to-far tee-line times if they are to utilize the throws of the opposition team to help judge the speed of the ice. But the mapping of split times is by far not the only complication in their use. In this
Using lasers in curling – an update
In the five years since John Newhook and I drafted this document describing the use of lasers in curling the technology has continued to improve and become more affordable, so it seemed like an update was in order. With many curling clubs moving to LED lighting for their arenas, green light lasers have now become the norm, rather than the exception, and their cost has plummeted. The lasers that I use (see below) can now be purchased from Amazon for a mere $38.69 Canadian, a significant drop from five years ago. Even a rechargeable, green laser pointer for presentations can be had for only $16, a long way from the nearly $200 I spent on a red laser pointer when I was in graduate school at the University of Manitoba. Of course, none of the lasers for sale anywhere are intended for curling, and the majority are intended for one of three use cases: for use with a firearm, usually