The Good and Bad of the Corner Guard

The corner guard is perhaps the unsung hero in the game of curling. It doesn't always have the impact on an end of a centre-line guard, the dramatic flair of a draw to the button, and certainly none of the razzle dazzle that comes with a big weight runback. But the best thing about a corner guard is that if you employ it properly, when you have the hammer, it is a low-risk, high-reward weapon that can help you on the way to a victory.

As I said above, you must employ the corner guard properly for it to be effective. The low-risk side of the guard is that it does not close down your opportunity to draw to the four-foot with your final rock of the end. The high reward that comes with a corner guard is that you have something to hide rocks behind - the more rocks you have in the house, with an open four-foot, the more likely you are to score multiple points. Here the corner guard can be an offensive force. This begins with rock placement. In my opinion, there are two main places you want to place your corner guard.

First Option: Tight and Close. 


In this first option, you bring your corner guard close to the house, right around the four-foot line. This leaves you with multiple options as the end progresses. First, you can tap this rock back, or run it back into an opponent rock, as indicated by the red arrow. Since it is nice and tight to the rings, the runbacks become that much easier.


But, since it is on the four-foot line, you are also able to draw into the four-foot from the open side, but also from the outside, as shown by the green arrow. The key to the corner guard is that it is low risk. When you have the hammer the ideal situation is for the centre of the ice to be open, leaving an easy draw to the button if anything goes wrong. This corner guard does have some risk - while it leaves a draw on both turns, it makes one turn slightly more difficult. However sometimes to score some points you need to take a little bit of risk. Throwing this guard gives you a good chance to score multiple points, without taking a whole lot of risk. 




Second Option: Wide and Half-Way.

This is one of my favourite rocks to utilize when I am skipping. In this case the rock is about halfway between the house and the hog line, covering the outside edge of the eight-foot, and all of the twelve-foot. This guard is high enough that you can bury multiple rocks behind it, but not so high that an opponent can tap out a buried rock.

Since it is farther away from the house, it is more difficult to use as a rock to tap or runback, but the true beauty of this guard is that there is essentially no risk in throwing it. As the green arrow shows, there is room to draw to the button past this guard. This means that even if everything goes wrong in the end, this guard is not in the way of your bail-out draw to the button on the last rock.







The Bad: Getting In The Draw Path. 


The biggest mistake you can make when throwing the corner guard is to leave it halfway Option One and Option Two. In this scenario, you are blocking the path the button on one half of the sheet. This essentially means that your opponent only has to worry about cutting off the other side of the sheet, and then you are in a world of trouble when it comes to skip's rocks. 

A corner guard in this situation is arguably worse than even throwing a centre guard. But, it is only a few feet away from either option above, so you are likely to face this scenario if you attempt the corner guard often.

If it ends up here, what can you do to help yourself out?







Making Good From Bad: Tap and Roll



I give the same advice here that I do if you accidentally throw a centre guard when you have the hammer. On your next shot, simply tap this poor guard into the house, and roll the shooter into a better location. Instead of playing with a bad guard, make two good shots with one throw: get a rock in the house, and get a corner guard in a great location.

Now that your corner guard is in place, use it well. Some teams know where to throw their corners, but then they forget about them for the rest of the end. Obviously your play may change a bit depending on what your opponents are making, but the corner guard can be your ace in the hole: it is a low-risk, high-reward chance to put some points on the scoreboard!