Spinners are not as rare as you may think

Hold on to your seats for this one.

Sweden’s Niklas Edin, the four-time defending world men’s curling champion skip, looked like a piece of toast as he got set to throw his last stone against Norway this afternoon.

Edin’s Swedish team, sitting at 6-0 at the world men’s championship in Ottawa, Ont., needed to score two points just to tie Norway and force an extra end.

The shot looked impossible. Edin had to tick a Norway’s shot stone that was frozen on a Swedish stone by a significant amount, to force the Swedish rock to be the chief counter, and then keep his shooter to count the second point.

It could only be done by throwing a “spinner,” a stone thrown with a truly ridiculous amount of curl, which is rarely attempted in serious competition.

Because it’s ridiculous.

Edin threw his stone and remarkably, he made the shot.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As6YFFbE-qY[/embed]

The TD Place Arena, not to mention the curling world, immediately erupted in cheers and admiration.

“That was insanity!” posted Mike McEwen. “Craziest shot I’ve ever seen made in the history of curling!”

Many called it a “super-spinner.”

“In a sport rich with history and memorable shots—this is the greatest curling shot ever thrown,” declared TCN contributor Hans Frauenlob.

“I have never seen a better curling shot,” posted Lisa Weagle, along with an exploding head emoji.

It’s not that spinners aren’t ever thrown. Edin’s third, Oskar Eriksson, made a spinner on the World Curling Tour earlier this very season, when Edin was knocked out of the lineup due to injury.

The shot is thrown a fair bit in practice, particularly among players who train and compete at the highest level. After all, they’ve mastered the regular, accepted ways to deliver a stone—and there’s often side bets to be made at the end of a practice session.

When thrown in competition, however, it’s usually a desperate action called on by a desperate situation.

Canadian curling legend and TV commentator Russ Howard was caught flat-footed by Edin’s whale of a throw.

Howard, an Olympic and two-time world champion, chuckled when Edin threw his spinner, and commented before the stone’s impact that “the red’s not gonna go anywhere, though.”

However, Edin’s red-handled stone rapped the yellow Norwegian counter and spun upward and away, leaving Sweden counting by at least four centimetres.

“I didn’t see the red spinning,” Howard admitted on air.

“That’s insane. That’s the best shot I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Did Sweden go on to steal the extra end and win the game?

Alas, they did not. Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell won the match 9-8, vaulting his team into a three-way tie with Sweden and Switzerland at 6-1.

Finnish competitor Tomi Rantamäki made a similar shot at a WCT mixed doubles event at Gävle, Sweden in January of 2019.

“Unfortunately there’s no video,” Rantamäki told The Curling News.

He also threw a similar stone at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, against Norway’s bronze-medal team of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten.

“But I didn’t take enough ice and crashed the guard,” said Rantamäki.

The former Finnish men’s team skip, who went on to coach China’s mixed doubles pairing at last year’s Olympics in Beijing, does have video of him making multiple spinner shots.

“I’ve used the spinner shot, and other rotations from one to 50, in different real game situations for about eight years now,” he said.

“Before PyeongChang I practiced the spinner a little more, and actually it was more accurate than the normal draw. The reason is, there is more time to adjust the distance by sweeping.”

Here’s one Rantamäki made in China, before the 2022 Olympic season.

“I have used it numerous times,” said Rantamäki. “It’s good to use when there is no other shot available or other shots wouldn’t give any advantage.

“The opponents usually get a shock if it succeeds.”

Here’s another he made in China, as the Games approached. In this one, Rantamäki achieved what Edin did earlier today—using a massive amount of spin to jump-start a 45-lb. stone’s movement upon impact.

“If we think about golf, the pro players utilize different spins all the time,” theorized Rantamäki.

“Why not to do the same in curling? I did a lot of field research on the effects of different rotations from 2015 to 2017. Then we applied that knowledge in my men’s team and mixed doubles team, successfully.”

Rantamäki is happy to see the members of Team Edin writing the spinner shot into their game book.

“More teams will follow,” Rantamäki declared.

“It is needed in the future to make the difference in tight games.”