Both men’s and women’s divisions feature 15 teams split into three pools of five for round-robin play. Each team plays four round-robin games against the teams within their pool.
All games in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling are played utilizing the five-rock rule.
Teams must wait until the sixth rock of play before they can start eliminating rocks that are sitting in the free-guard zone (outside the house from the tee line to the near hog line). The five-rock rule is designed to generate more offence with an extra guard in play.
No Tick Zone: Rock in the free-guard zone that is touching the centre line.
Rocks in the “No Tick Zone” may not be moved off the centre line by the opponent until the sixth rock of the end. It is the non-offending team’s decision to replace the rock(s) to the original position or leave the situation as it is.
The rule will apply in the eighth and extra ends only.
All matches will be eight ends. Each team will have 33 minutes plus two (2) x 90-second timeouts using the “Slam Time” System.
Teams are allowed a maximum of 30 seconds to deliver the first rock of an end. If the delivering team has not delivered its first rock within the 30 seconds, their clock will start.
If a team runs out of time, they will stop delivering stones for the rest of the 8 end match.
Please note that this rule will be enforced. It is your responsibility to monitor your clock. The head official may notify a team if he deems it necessary.
Teams get five minutes to complete an extra end regardless of how much time they finished the eighth end. Each team gets one (1) x 90-second timeout regardless of how many timeouts they had remaining after the eighth end. If a team runs out of time in the extra end they will stop delivering stones.
During the round-robin, each team member must execute the draw to the button once.
The chosen player will first deliver a rock towards the home end with the help of brushers. If the player covers the pinhole completely, the same shooter will then deliver a second draw to the button without brushers. Should both teams cover again, a third stone would be delivered by a different player with the help of one brusher only, then no brusher if both teams cover again and so on until we determine a pre-game draw winner.
The total distance of all four pre-game shootouts will be used to rank the teams tied with the same record.
After all round-robin matches are completed, the top eight teams based on win/loss records and ties from the field of 15 teams advance to the playoff round or tiebreaking system. Teams will then be re-ranked by their round-robin win/loss records and if tied by their shootout scores.
Tiebreaker games will be eight ends. Should more than one (1) tiebreaker draw be needed, the head official reserves the right to change tiebreakers to six-end games.
*Shootout scores can achieve qualification, but not elimination without playing a tiebreaker match.
*Exception: Team(s) at 1-3 may be eliminated from tiebreakers, as a maximum of 2 tie-breaker draws will be played.
Entry is $1,200.00 per team and is payable at the end of the event by teams that go winless in round robin play. Entry fee will be deducted from winnings for all the other teams.
Both divisions feature a $125,000 CDN purse ($250,000 combined purse).