The Impact of Free Guard Zone Rule Modification on the Game of Curling

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

The Free Guard Zone (FGZ) rule, one of the most important elements that has been applied in the sport of curling for the last 30 years, was modified by the World Curling Federation in 2018 to add more excitement to the game. With the modification of the FGZ rule it is expected that the games will be played more competitively. The aim of this research is to examine the changes in various parameters such as the points generated per game, number of blank ends, total ends played, big ends and the extra end situation after the revised FGZ rule. Within the scope of the study elite level international competitions (Olympic Games, World and European Curling Championships) played for 3 years before (844 games) and after (908 games) the FGZ rule in the womens and mens category were evaluated. The data was taken from the Historical Results section of the World Curling Federation web page. Independent Sample t test was run in JASP 0.15.0.0 statistical analysis program. The level of significance was taken as p