If a curler touches the stone, it’s treated as a rules violation called “burning the stone” in curling.

Quick Scoop

When a player (or their broom or other equipment) touches a stone that’s in play, a few different things can happen depending on when and how it’s touched.

1. Name of the infraction

  • Touching a stone in motion or at rest is commonly called burning the stone.
  • It includes contact with the player’s body, broom, or other equipment, not just a deliberate grab of the handle.

2. If the stone is touched while moving

The consequences change based on where the stone is on the sheet.

Before the far hog line

  • If a moving stone is touched (burned) before it reaches the far hog line, it is usually immediately removed from play by the team that burned it.
  • This keeps things simple: the shot is basically treated as if it never made it into play.

Between tee line (at delivery end) and far hog line

  • World and national rulebooks state that if a moving stone is touched by the delivering team between the tee line at the delivering end and the far hog line , that stone is to be removed from play immediately.
  • If it’s instead touched by the non-delivering team , the non-offending team is allowed to place the stones where they reasonably think they would have ended up if there had been no touch.

After the far hog line (near the house)

Here is where skip judgment really comes into play.

  • If a moving stone is burned after it crosses the far hog line, all stones are first allowed to come to rest.
  • Then the non-offending skip gets to choose one of three options:
1. **Remove the burned stone** and put all other stones back to their original positions before the touch.
2. **Leave everything as it ended up** after the foul, if that actually benefits them.
3. **Reconstruct the end** : place the burned stone and any affected stones where they reasonably believe they would have finished if there had been no touch.

This “skip’s choice” approach is designed to protect fairness without stopping play every time there’s a minor accident.

3. Touching a stationary stone

  • If the stone isn’t moving and a player accidentally nudges it, the skips will work together to put it back where it was as closely as possible.
  • The non-offending skip has the final say on the exact placement if there’s any disagreement.

4. Spirit of the game and honesty

Curling relies heavily on sportsmanship, and this is especially true with burned stones.

  • Players are expected to immediately call their own fouls if they burn a stone, even if no one else notices.
  • The culture of the sport is that integrity matters more than squeezing out one extra point; rulebooks and ethics codes explicitly emphasize fair play and honest conduct.

5. A quick example

Imagine a curler accidentally clips their own stone with the broom as it slides into the house, after the far hog line:

  • Everyone lets the stones finish moving.
  • The opposing skip then decides:
    • If the result is bad for them, they might remove the burned stone and reset any other stones that got bumped.
* If the burned shot actually turned out worse than what they expected from a clean shot, they might **leave everything as is**.

This mix of firm rules plus skip discretion is exactly what your key phrase “what happens if a curler touches the stone” points to: the stone can be removed, the end can be reconstructed, or in some cases play stands, depending on timing and who committed the touch.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.