2021

The second annual Big Jib Draw bonspiel took place on 23-26 September 2021 at the RE/MAX Centre (St. John’s Curling Club), located at 135 Mayor Avenue in St. John’s.

21 teams from six provinces participated.

Some social media posts about the bonspiel can be found on its Facebook event page.  For posts elsewhere, look for the #BigJibDraw2021 hashtag.

 

Winner’s Purse

Cash prizes for the top four playoff teams will be awarded as follows.

First Place $1000
Second Place $750
Third Place $500
Fourth Place $250

Registration

Registration is now closed. The following 21 teams are confirmed.

Team Name Location
Bend and Snap St. John’s
Get Your Sheet Together St. John’s
Quarantini on the Rocks St. John’s
Rock Hard St. John’s
Team Dunne St. John’s
Team G.O.A.T. (Gayest of All Time) St. John’s
The Back Door Bandits St. John’s
The Real HouseB’ys of St. John’s St. John’s
The Stud Puffins St. John’s
Miss the Mark Halifax
East Coast Connection Halifax/Moncton
Équipe Pilié Montréal
The Curly Qs Ottawa
Dirty John’s Toronto
God Spare the Qweens Toronto
Golden Curls Toronto
Queens of the Knight Toronto
Small Arms, Big Rocks Toronto
The Tonya Hurry Hardings Toronto
The Drunken Sailors Toronto/Vancouver
All Sorts New Westminster, BC

 

Travel

Please be sure to book flights using airport code YYT for St. John’s, Newfoundland. Do not select the city of Saint John in New Brunswick as your destination. Although the people in Saint John are very nice, that is not where our bonspiel is taking place.

A promotion code for travel within several days of the bonspiel has been obtained from Air Canada. Enter the code HAMQTKC1 when making a booking on their website to see the discounts that it provides for travel to/from the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In June 2021, the provincial government outlined a plan for emerging from COVID restrictions. On July 30th it was announced that beginning on August 1st travellers who have had at least one dose of vaccine will be able to come to Newfoundland without having to self-isolate or be tested upon arrival. Travellers who have not yet had any vaccination will be required to endure a self-isolation period upon arriving in Newfoundland. All travellers will need to submit a travel form within the 72 hour period prior to their intended arrival in Newfoundland.

 

Welcoming Social

We will be having a welcoming reception on the evening of Thursday 23 September 2021, starting at 8:00 pm, at the RE/MAX Centre.

The opportunity to practice on the ice will also be available at this time. Below is the schedule for booked practice time.

 

Draw Schedule

We are planning to have 8 draws of pool play, with the first one being on the morning of 24 September 2021. Each team will play four 8-end games in advance of the playoffs. A full schedule is shown below. All times are with respect to the Newfoundland time zone.

Click here to view the points that each team has earned during pool play.

The Saturday evening social event will take place at Brewdock, 85 Duckworth Street. Brewdock is a beer bar, eatery, and outdoor beer garden. Brewdock primarily serves craft beer from both Newfoundland and Labrador’s flourishing craft beer scene and come from away craft breweries. Draught (24 taps), casks, bottles, and cans are constantly rotated. To complement the selection of great beer, Brewdock’s kitchen serves up some of the best individual and sharing plates the city can offer. Brewdock draws its inspiration from Stillwell, Bar Volo, Battery Park, and Hopyard and looks to bring together beer from local and foreign independently owned craft breweries, pair it with local fare, and provide a polished atmosphere in both its indoor space and outdoor beer garden.

At 10:30pm at Brewdock we will draw the 4 team names for the Lucky Loser playoff. We will also draw a team from among the early-bird registrants; the members of the selected team will win back their registration fee. Brewdock will also host a screech-in ceremony for those who signed up for it.

 

Playoff Schedule

The eight teams that advance into the playoff games, as well as the four teams selected for the Lucky Loser playoff, will play on Sunday according to the following schedule.

Rules and Format of Play

With 21 teams participating in the Big Jib Draw in 2021, we have divided the teams into three pools that each consist of seven teams. Over the course of pool play, each team will play four of the six other teams within the same pool. Every team will play two games on each of Friday and Saturday.

Each game of pool play will have a maximum of 8 ends. There will be no extra ends, and thus games may end in a tie. Prior to each game, teams should greet each other and toss a coin to determine who will start with the hammer. Our schedule allows 2 hours and 15 minutes for each game to be played. After 1 hour and 45 minutes have passed a buzzer or bell will be rung, signalling that teams will then be allowed to finish the current end (if it has already started) as well as one more end if the current end is not the eighth end. An end is only considered to have already started if at least one rock has already been delivered. So, for example, if the sixth end has just finished and the timing bell rings before the first rock of the seventh end is thrown, then the seventh end will be the final end of the game. However, if the first rock of the seventh end has been delivered before the timing bell is rung, then the eighth end will be the last end that gets played.

During pool play, teams will earn points that will be used to determine whether they advance to the Quarter Finals on Sunday. Teams will earn 7 points for each game they win, 3 points for each tied game, and 1 point for each end won. Blanked ends generate no points for either team. Scored rocks yield no points aside from their role in determining which team wins the game.

As the goal during pool play is to earn as many points as possible, it is therefore not recommended that teams quit playing before time runs out. However, should a team concede defeat, then all remaining ends will be deemed to be won by the victorious team, who will correspondingly earn points for winning those ends. Any team that fails to be present at the start of a game will be treated as having conceded and will earn 0 points for that game, whereas their opponent will be awarded 15 points (7 points for winning the game, plus 8 points for winning all 8 ends) provided that the absent team’s opponent does show up on time.

Except when a team concedes, no points will be awarded for unplayed ends beyond the final end of a game. So for example, if the timing bell prevents an eighth end from being played, then neither team will score a point for that end. In order to have the most opportunity to earn points, it is advisable that teams not waste time during the game, so that they can play as many ends as time will allow.

Our bonspiel will follow Curling Canada’s rules of play, including the Five Rock Rule. For the benefit of less experienced curlers, the next few sentences describe how this rule pertains to rocks that are located in the Free Guard Zone. A rock is in the Free Guard Zone if it is completely out of the rings and is entirely between the tee line and the hog line, or it has not crossed the hog line but is nevertheless in play because it struck a rock that was in play when it was delivered. Prior to the delivery of the sixth rock of an end, if a delivered rock causes an opposition rock to be moved from the Free Guard Zone to an out-of-play position, then the delivered rock is removed from play and all displaced rocks are returned to their original position. Accordingly, none of the first five rocks delivered in an end are permitted to take out opposition rocks lying within the Free Guard Zone.

During each draw of pool play we will have a special bell (in the form of a traditional Newfoundland “ugly stick”) that can be rung by any team that makes a double take-out. This team will retain the coveted ugly stick until a double take-out is made by a different team during the same draw, at which time the ugly stick will be transferred accordingly. Since each draw has multiple games in progress concurrently, the ugly stick may visit many sheets over the course of a draw. The team that has custody of the ugly stick at the end of the draw will be rewarded with a round of shots from the bar.

When scoring rocks after an end is complete, teams will generally do their own measurements to determine which rocks have scored. If necessary, a Draw Official may be called upon to make rulings about close measurements.

After each game, please record how many ends each team won, along with the final game score. Forms for this purpose will be distributed by the organisers. Completed forms should be signed by a member from each team and then turned in at the registration desk. The bonspiel’s Draw Master will enter the relevant details into a master scoring spreadsheet that will be made available for public viewing throughout the competition.

To determine which eight teams move on to the Quarter Finals from the three pools of teams, we will select the team with the most points from each individual pool, plus the top five teams from among the 18 teams that aren’t the top in their individual pool. The eight teams chosen to advance will then be ranked in order on the basis of the number of points earned during pool play. The Quarter Finals will commence on Sunday with the top ranked team playing the bottom ranked team, the 2nd from the top playing the 2nd from the bottom, and so forth.

As there may be ties that need to be broken (when selecting the top team from each pool, when selecting the five additional teams, and also when putting the eight selected teams into ranked order), we will require all 21 teams in the bonspiel to perform a measured draw to the button at the completion of their first game on Friday. This draw will be supervised and recorded by a Draw Official who will get to use our spiffy new laser measure. If it is the first game played by each team on the sheet and both need to perform a measured draw, then the team that would not have had the hammer if another end were to be played will perform its draw first.

For these measured draws, any individual team member may throw the rock to be measured while some other team member holds a broom for aiming purposes. Sweeping is permitted only by the team making the draw. If the rock finishes in the rings but does not cover the pin, its distance will be measured and recorded. If the rock covers the pin, it will be recorded as being on the pin. Any rock that fails to finish in the rings will be recorded as out of the house. Notwithstanding the foregoing procedures, any rock which is moved before it is measured by the Draw Official will result in the penalty of it being recorded as out of the house. In the event that the rock is on the pin or is out of the house, the Draw Official will then remove it from the ice and a second rock will be thrown by a different team member. This second rock’s distance will only be used to break ties with other teams that earn the same number of points during pool play and whose first measured rock also covers the pin or is out of the rings. Rocks that encounter debris on the ice will not be permitted to be rethrown.

In addition to selecting eight teams for the Quarter Finals as outlined above, we will select four other teams for our Lucky Loser playoff. To select the teams for the Lucky Loser playoff, four teams will be randomly selected from among the 13 teams that do not advance to the Quarter Finals. This selection will take place at Brewdock at 10:30pm on Saturday evening.

Playoff games on Sunday will commence with greetings and a coin toss similar to during pool play. Each playoff game will be allocated 2 hours and 15 minutes. The expectation is that eight ends will be played unless a team concedes before the eighth end is played. In the event of a tie after eight ends, an extra end will be played. If a tie persists after this extra end, the winner will be decided by performing as many measured draws to the button as needed; the team without hammer will throw first, and a Draw Official will do the measuring.

 

COVID Guidelines

There may be some public health and safety guidelines that we will have to follow during the bonspiel. We will share these in as timely a manner as we can. In the meantime, below are some informative links.

Sponsors

We are seeking sponsors to provide prizes, raffle items as well as financial support. Please contact us if you would like to discuss sponsorship opportunities. If your logo is not yet displayed below, then please send it along to us.