There will be no timeouts at 2011 Scotties
by Dave Stewart
The Canadian Curling Association (CCA) clarified Monday the situation with the clocks at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Charlottetown, Feb. 19 to 27.
Warren Hansen, director of event operations for the CCA, says there will be no timeouts.
The Guardian ran a story last week indicating that curlers could call two 30-second timeouts.
Hansen said curlers will be able to confer with their coaches for 20 to 30 seconds if they wish to but the clocks will not stop unless officials feel it is necessary.
“This will be at the discretion of the head official at each event,’’ Hansen said.
At the recent Continental Cup, the CCA gave coaches 20 to 30 seconds to get down to ice level because they were situated on a bench away from the ice surface.
At the Scotties national women’s curling championship, coaches will be down at ice level.
“The clock doesn’t stop, not unless the official feels there is a need for travel time to be allocated.’’
Each team at the Scotties will be allotted 73 minutes to play the game.
In the past, teams at CCA events, such as the Scotties, were permitted two one-minute timeouts. In those cases, the clocks did stop. Not anymore.
Hansen said the decision to remove the timeouts was made in order to make it easier on television and to prevent teams from using timeouts to slow the game down before a critical shot.
At the Scotties, players will not be allowed to stop the clock but the officials can.
“There can be an official’s timeout. If there was any kind of issue that involved the officials, because of a dispute or something of that nature, they could call a timeout but the players cannot.’’
In the event that a team’s clock expires before the game is finished, the other team would be permitted to throw its remaining rocks as long as it has a mathematical shot of winning.
As far as the provincial Scotties tournament this week in Cornwall, coaches will be given 20 seconds to get to the ice and a maximum of 60 seconds to strategize with their team but the clock will continue to tick the entire time.