What's the curling format at the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts?

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The road to a Canadian women’s curling championship takes navigating many twists and turns at the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

And, of course, it takes victories.

But just what is the route to ultimate triumph and the national crown at the 10-day event in Thunder Bay, Ont?

How do the teams weather the storms and the many stages of the Scotties?

First, a few had to survive the actual weather, with a barrage of snow keeping rinks from arriving on schedule for the championship.

B.C. queen Corryn Brown and her team arrived in the wee hours of Friday morning after two days of delayed travel and then played — and somehow won handily — in Draw 1 later in the evening.

“Oh … super-smooth travel to get here,” said Brown, sarcastically, after the opening 11-4 win over Alberta’s Selena Sturmay. “We started our travel from Kamloops on Tuesday evening to go to Kelowna. And then we were delayed 24 hours in Toronto and got in (Friday) morning at 3 a.m.

“So we had to sleep quick and then practise (Friday) afternoon after we had to change our practice time. We were really focusing on one rock at a time — just really simplifying it — given the fact that we are pretty fatigued and had a long journey here.”

Not ideal if you are chasing any kind of élite championship.

But then winning the Scotties is all about surviving the rigours of the event.

It’s a marathon — not a sprint — and here’s how foursomes make it to the finale …

HOW DOES THE ROUND-ROBIN WORK?

The round robin — 18 draws total — runs through Thursday evening, with starts from here on out at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (all times ET):

• The 18 teams have been split up into two pools
• Each team plays eight games, squaring off once each against each of its pool foes
• The three teams with the best records after the round robin advance to the playoffs
• There are no tiebreaking games
• Any tiebreak needed in the standings is determined respectively by: 1) which team wins more of the head-to-head matchups; 2) measuring the total of the accumulated draw-shot distance for those tied teams based on the draw-to-the-button — or last-stone draw — competition before the teams’ round-robin matchups; 3) measuring the total of that accumulated draw-shot distance after dropping the largest distances of those draw-shots; and 4) repeating 3) if necessary by dropping the next largest distance until the tie is broken

HOW DOES THE PLAYOFF SYSTEM WORK?

After the top three teams from each pool are determined, it’s onward to Friday’s qualifying round, which remains the same — a Page playoff-type format — from the 2024 Scotties in Calgary:

• The first-place teams of each pool crossover to play the other pool’s second-place teams in 1-v-2 seeding games
• The winners of those 1-v-2 seeding games advance to the playoff round, while the losers drop to the 3-v-4 seeding games against the third-place teams in each pool
• The winners of those 3-v-4 seeding games advance to the playoff round, which now consists of four finalists

HOW DOES A CHAMPION GET CROWNED?

With just four teams remaining, the Page playoff kicks in again Saturday and Sunday:

• The winners of the qualifying round’s 1-v-2 games play each other early Saturday, with the winner advancing straight to Sunday’s late final and the loser advancing to Sunday’s early semifinal
• The winners of the qualifying round’s 3-v-4 games play each other late Saturday, with the winner advancing to Sunday’s early semifinal and the loser being eliminated
• The semifinal winner then advances to Sunday’s late final (7 p.m. ET), after which the Scotties champion will be crowned

So it’s a long haul to the throne.

And the last thing teams needed was a rough travel schedule ahead of the event.

“We had a really good support system around us,” added Brown. “(Coach) Jim (Cotter) and (alternate) Kristen (Ryan) really kept us calm. There’s nothing we could do. You can’t control it — we kind of just really took that approach. This is the cards we’re dealt.

“We just focused on making it not bigger than it needed to be.”

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

http://www.x.com/ToddSaelhof