In curling, it’s called “the hammer” because it refers to the final , decisive shot of an end – the last stone, which can “hammer home” the result, smash away opponents’ stones, or seal the score in your favor.

What “the hammer” actually means

  • The hammer is the advantage of throwing the last stone in an end.
  • The team with the hammer gets the final say in how the house looks, often turning a close situation into multiple points or forcing the opponent to score nothing.
  • On scoreboards and TV graphics, a little hammer icon simply marks which team has that last-rock advantage.

Why it’s called “the hammer”

There’s no single, officially documented origin of the word, but there are two widely discussed and very plausible ideas:

  1. “Hammer home” / decisive blow idea
    • In everyday English, to “hammer home” a point means to drive it in decisively, leaving no doubt.
    • The last shot in curling can do exactly that: wipe out stones, secure a big score, or lock in a win, so the nickname “hammer” fits that decisive-blow role. Fans and players often describe the hammer as the chance to deliver the final blow in the end.
  2. Early “smash everything out” style
    • Some curlers speculate that the term grew from an older, more takeout-heavy style of play, where the last rock was often thrown hard to blast opposing stones out, like hitting them with a hammer.
 * That image of a heavy, forceful, game-changing shot maps neatly onto the last-stone advantage.

Forum discussions among curlers note that nobody has turned up a firm historical citation for the first use of the term, but the “decisive blow / hammer home” explanation is the one that best matches how players and commentators actually use it today.

How a team gets the hammer

Even though your main question is about the name, it helps to know how teams earn it:

  • Before a game, teams usually do a Last Stone Draw (LSD) : players slide stones toward the button, and the team closest to the center gets the hammer in the first end.
  • After that:
    • If you score in an end, you lose the hammer next end.
    • If you don’t score (a blank end), you keep the hammer.

This flip-flop is why teams sometimes deliberately blank an end: they’d rather keep the hammer for a better scoring chance later.

Quick recap

  • The hammer = last-stone advantage in an end, a central strategic weapon in curling.
  • The name almost certainly comes from the idea of a final, decisive “hammer” blow (or “hammering home” a result), and possibly from the old habit of throwing big, smashing takeout shots with that last rock.

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