2022

The third annual Big Jib Draw bonspiel will take place on 22-25 September 2022 at the RE/MAX Centre (St. John’s Curling Club), located at 135 Mayor Avenue in St. John’s.

Some social media posts about the bonspiel can be found on its Facebook event page. For posts elsewhere, look for the #BigJibDraw2022 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

To register a team, click here. The registration fee is $400 per team (this includes four social event tickets). Extra social event tickets can be purchased during registration.

Our bonspiel has an open team format.

We have space for 30 teams to participate (provided that 12 teams agree to play their first game on Thursday September 22nd). Up until the registration deadline we will reserve a block of twelve registration spots for out-of-province teams and another block of twelve for NL-based teams; the remaining six spots are available on a first-come first-served basis. Any vacant spots within a reserved block will be released to waitlisted teams when the registration deadline arrives.

Registration or waitlist position will not be confirmed until payment has been received. Payment should be sent via Interac e-Transfer after filling out the registration form. If we cannot accommodate your team then your payment will be returned.

Teams that register and pay before midnight (Newfoundland time) on June 15th will be entered into a draw for a chance to win back their team registration fee.

Registration will close at midnight (Newfoundland time) on July 31st.

Registration payments are refundable with cancellation requests up to 12:00 noon (Newfoundland time) on August 1st.

The following 30 teams are confirmed to have registered. Those listed with a check mark will play their first game at 6:15pm on Thursday September 22nd.

Team Name	Location	Thursday Draw
All in the Wrist	St. John’s	✓
Brew Jays	St. John’s	✓
Curling Me Softly	St. John’s
Downtown Crowd minus Steve	St. John’s
GOAT – Gayest Of All Time	St. John’s
(Not That) Team Gushue	St. John’s	✓
Plug the hole	St. John’s	✓
Rock Hard	St. John’s
Squeerels	St. John’s
Team Cribb	St. John’s	✓
Team Drink Drank Drunk	St. John’s	✓
Team Thomas	St. John’s	✓
The Queen’s Beards	St. John’s	✓
Absolutely Fagulous	Halifax	✓
Stop Shaking the Broom	Halifax
Team No Name	Halifax
The Gay Nerdz	Halifax / Toronto
Golden Curls	Ottawa
Little Miss Ontari-Hoes	Ottawa
Oh No She Betta Draw!	Ottawa
The Sassy Sweepers	Ottawa
Team Joyce	Ottawa	✓
BISK BLITZ	Toronto
Rink Flamingos	Toronto
Sara and the B’ys	Toronto	✓
Shady Bitches	Toronto
Team Hammered & Stoned	Toronto
Team Nagle	Toronto
Team Newell	Toronto	✓
Drunken Sailors	Toronto / Vancouver

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.

Discount code from Air Canada: U2PU3Q31
This promotion code is valid for travel within several days of the bonspiel. Enter the code when making a booking on the Air Canada website to see the discounts that it provides for travel to/from St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Welcoming Social

We will be having a welcoming reception on the evening of Thursday 22 September 2022, starting at 8:00pm, at the RE/MAX Centre.

The opportunity to practice on the ice will be available at this time. Below is the schedule for booked practice time. The slots at 5:00pm and 5:30pm are reserved for teams that will play their first game at 6:15pm.

Draw Schedule

With 30 teams, we are planning to have 10 draws of pool play, with the first one being on the evening of 22 September 2022. Each team will play four 8-end games in advance of the playoffs. A schedule (with the 30 teams divided into six colour-coded pools of five teams) 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 begin at 10:00pm at O’Reilly’s Irish Newfoundland Pub, located at 13 George Street. The screeching-in of those who signed up for the screech-in will take place at 11:00pm.

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 30 teams participating in the Big Jib Draw in 2022, we have divided the teams into six pools that each consist of five teams. Over the course of pool play, each team will play all four of the other teams within the same pool.

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 has shown 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 made contact with 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 holds 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 or initialled 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 six pools of teams, we will select the team with the most points from each individual pool, plus the top two teams from among the 24 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 two additional teams, and also when putting the eight selected teams into ranked order), we will require all teams in the bonspiel to perform a measured draw to the button at the completion of their first game. This draw will be supervised and recorded by a Draw Official who will get to use our spiffy 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 teams that do not advance to the Quarter Finals. This selection will take place at O’Reilly’s 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.

Odds & Ends Curling