# Watching the Brier **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 5, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504 "2017-03-05T23:47:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/1 "2017-03-05T23:47:11Z")
Ontario is sitting four against Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/2 "2017-03-06T00:02:43Z")
First end finished with Ontario taking two. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/3 "2017-03-06T00:30:32Z")
Advert just came on for the 2018 World Championship in Las Vegas. Somehow I never associate Vegas with curling. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/4 "2017-03-06T00:37:32Z")
And on another sheet, Newfoundland stole 2. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/5 "2017-03-06T00:49:50Z")
Ontario sitting five with two stones left in this end! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/6 "2017-03-06T00:53:55Z")
Ontario overcurls on last rock and Canada steals 1! 2 all. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/7 "2017-03-06T01:49:29Z")
Advert of the pubs on George Street, St John’s. Recognised a few. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/8 "2017-03-06T02:35:08Z")
And Canada pulls it out with a deuce on last rock: 5-4. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/9 "2017-03-06T03:49:43Z")
I saw the last couple ends at my club; good game. I also watched the final of the Scotties last weekend. Great game by Homan for the win. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/10 "2017-03-07T18:23:00Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Advert just came on for the 2018 World Championship in Las Vegas. Somehow I never associate Vegas with curling. Having curled in Vegas, I can say that it’s a wonderful place for it. You curl, then you go out and eat splendid food, then you can do an amazing number of wonderful things, before going back in to curl again. The Continental Cup is held in Vegas, too. I plan on going next year to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/11 "2017-03-11T19:48:50Z")
I was watching the highlights of the 1-2 Page Playoff game and I had a question about one part of the game. Newfoundland held the hammer with a 1-point lead going into the 9th End. On Newfoundland’s final rock, they had 1st and 3rd rock, and the Manitoba 2nd rock was completely unprotected. I looked at the situation and said to myself, “That’s an easy 3 points”, but Gushue opted to simply peel the Manitoba rock and take 2 points instead. Was my estimation of the difficulty of a hit-and-stick in that situation wrong, or was it simply that a 3 point going into the final end is basically a guaranteed win, so any extra difficulty for a 4th point simply wasn’t worth it? ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/12 "2017-03-11T20:16:09Z")
Rysto - the Manitoba rock was in front of a NL rock (a little more than a foot). A NL takeout could jam and give up one, or take out two or three rocks scoring only one or two. The situation - take your easy two and lead by three going into the last end was an easy decision. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/13 "2017-03-12T01:17:08Z")
Earlier in the game might the calculation be different though? Say it had been the first end. Would he have been more likely to try for 3 in a situation where 2 didn’t effectively guarantee victory? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/14 "2017-04-07T21:20:51Z")
It all depends on the game situation and how the skip views his chances. In this case, the game situation was obviously the main criterion. Coming home up 3 is a practical certainty. You throw away your first two rocks and then peel everything in sight. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-the-brier/781504/15 "2017-04-08T00:01:17Z")
A little trivia here. The word “brier” means a prickly plant or shrub, or a tangled mass of prickly plants. The root of a particular brier plant was once found to be the ideal material from which to carve a tobacco-smoking pipe, and many better pipes were made from brier. Tobaccos were processed for specific uses, and one type of tobacco, made for pipes, acquired the common name of Brier tobacco, as distinct from cigarette tobacco… The MacDonald’s tobacco company of Canada sponsored and had the naming rights to the national curling championships, which were named for MacDonald’s Brier tobacco, or, for short, simply “The Brier”. By extension, brier became the generic word, often used to designate any curling championship competition. It is now, officially, the Tim Horton’s Brier, with that fast food chain having assumed the naming rights surrendered by MacDonalds. But it’s still “The Brier”. Canadians will correct you, and tell you that it is spelled brier, not the same as the American word briar, as in “They ran through the briars And they ran through the brambles And they ran through the bushes Where a rabbit couldn’t go” But in fact they are both exactly the same word of the same origin. However according to the Ngram viewer, the -ar spelling variation has been, since antiquity, in both American and British usage, the more commonly used spelling. Spelled with an A in most literature, but with an E in Canadian curling circles. (I didn’t mean to cross-post, but I inadvertently posted this in the wrong curling thread–it is more appropriate here.)