Four positions, four completely different jobs: what lead, second, vice and skip actually do, who sweeps the most and where a newcomer should start.
A curling team has four positions — lead, second, third (often called the vice) and skip. Each player delivers two of the team's eight stones per end [1], and as a newcomer you almost always start at lead: the simplest stones, and the most broom. That is not a demotion. It is the best apprenticeship this sport has to offer.
Positions exist because of the running order. Two teams of four push 16 stones alternately down a sheet roughly 45 metres long and into the house [1]. Throw early and you play into an empty house. Throw late and you have to thread between eight stones. Same movement, completely different job.
One thing surprises almost every newcomer: the physically hardest position is not the skip's. It is the front end. A lead sweeps on the order of 60 stones per game and covers up to around a mile — roughly 1.6 kilometres — while sweeping, with heart rates that in measurements reach the region of 170 beats per minute [2]. The skip, meanwhile, stands at the other end and thinks.
So the question "which position do you want to play?" is not small talk at a club. It asks: do you want to execute what is needed — or decide what is needed?
The lead opens the end with the team's first two stones [1][3]. Usually these are guards (protecting stones in front of the house) or draws (stones into the house): shots without traffic, and therefore without excuses. After that the lead sweeps nearly every remaining stone. That is precisely why it is the beginner's position — you learn the delivery on the cleanest stones and get the most ice time along the way [2].
Stones five and six go to the second. By now there is something on the sheet: the second removes opposition stones, tucks in behind a guard or freezes onto one. Sweeping volume is still nearly the same as the lead's [2][4]. Second is where most club players end up — it demands both, the throw and the work.
The third plays stones seven and eight, then takes on a double role. In the house they hold the broom as the target while the skip throws [1][4], and they are the skip's tactical sounding board. They measure in tight ends and stand in for the skip when the call is uncertain. Vice means deputy — quite literally.
The skip sets the target for every stone the team throws, calls the sweeping and decides which shot is played at all [1][4]. In return they throw the two hardest stones of the end — the ones the points hang on. In competition analytics a shot percentage of 88 to 90 per cent counts as the elite band, and a skip at 92 per cent as outstanding [6]. Those are orders of magnitude from competition data, not controlled study values — but they show how thin the air gets at the top.
For your first year the rule is simple: play the front end. More repetitions, more ice time, less decision pressure than in any other position. The move back comes by itself once the delivery is solid. In beginner teams the positions get rotated anyway, so everyone tries everything once [5].
Your position determines your load. Playing the front end means sweeping on the order of 60 stones per game [2] — endurance work in a bent-over posture, and it hits back and shoulders if you start it cold. So warm up before the first stone runs, not in the third end.
For every position: the moment you walk instead of slide, the slip-on gripper goes over the slider. Most beginner falls happen while walking on the Teflon sole, not while sliding.
And a word on roles: a skip who tells a beginner in their third session to "just play a takeout" means well and gets it wrong. Say what you can play — that is not weakness, it is information your team needs [4]. No guide replaces coached instruction; your coach will see in one game where you belong.
Keep a position diary for one season: three lines after every game. How many of your stones ended roughly where they were meant to? How often did you have to guess while sweeping instead of knowing? And did you miss making the calls — or was it a relief not to have to?
After ten games you no longer have an opinion about your favourite position, you have data. That is exactly how good club teams pick their line-up.
The skip decides which shot is played, holds the broom in the house as the target and calls during the run whether and how hard to sweep [1][4]. They throw the last two stones of the end themselves. In short: playmaker and coach in one — and the only position nobody ever sees sweeping their own delivery.
Four per team, so eight people on the sheet [1]. A game runs eight ends at club level or ten at championships [3]; per end both teams deliver 16 stones together [1]. A club game therefore usually takes around two hours.
The hammer is the last stone of an end — the last word. Only one team can score in an end, the one with the stone closest to the centre [3]. Throwing last lets you still flip that picture. That is why the hammer goes in the next end to whichever team did not score [3].
Lead. You play the first two stones with no traffic in the house, learn the delivery on the simplest shots and then spend nearly the whole end on the ice with a broom [2]. Curling can be learned at any age, and that is exactly where learn-to-curl programmes begin [5].
Why Curlers Sweep: The Physics of Sweeping — Farther, Straighter and How to Do It Right