In Knots

I mentioned yesterday that in the curling bonspiel Friday we won one game and tied the other. Let me tell you, that second game was as tied as tied could be.

The final curling score was 4 - 4. Each team won four ends (ends are the rough equivalent of baseball innings). A single point was scored in each end. Both teams stole an end (a steal in curling is when you score at a least one point without 'hammer' or the last shot of an end) and each scored only one point in the three other ends that they had the hammer. Each team scored the same amount of points in the system used for determining the overall winner of a short bonspiel: 10 points per team for the tie, and one point for each end won for four points apiece, a total of 14 points (1/4 points are allowed for score differential, but we didn't have that). So we also tied the tiebreaker score 14 - 14. And incidentally, although we won our first game our opponents tied their other match.

I can't see how it could have been more tied.

Whither Ties?

Why can't we have ties? Why can't a game end with each team having the same score? Why must there be a winner and a loser? And aren't some ties in fact really good games?

The National Hockey League has held for several seasons now 'shootouts' to break ties. Soccer has had championship matches decided in like fashion. If there's a dumber way to break a tie I cannot imagine what it is. Such a process cheapens, indeed I would argue that it mocks, a victory anyhow. Winning on luck is nothing to be proud about.

There is fear, now that the National Football League has cut overtime periods to 10 minutes, there will be more ties in football this coming season. But so what? If teams played to a draw, it's a draw. Let it stand.

Even in championship games, why can't there be co-champions if the result is a tie? They're only games after all; entertainments; diversions. They aren't really that important.

Let ties stand. If it buggers your standings or your ratings, or especially if it buggers your demand that someone must win and someone else lose, I don't think you're particularly sportsmanlike at all.