Anyone who has seen curling in a big arena or in the Olympics probably has seen the score displayed much like a baseball score. The scoreboard has a row at the top of the board showing the end played (like an inning), and two rows below that showing each team's score.
Most curling clubs use a traditional curling scoreboard - which can be confusing because it looks somewhat like a baseball scoreboard. But for curling, the movable numbers represent the ends - and therefore there are only 10 or 11 of them. The fixed numbers - green in this illustration - along the center show the score. If one thinks of it as a horizontal bar graph, the score is number in the center (green in this illustration) with the tile furthest to the right next to it - in this case 8 for yellow and 6 for red.
At the end of each end, the vice-skip (usually) of the scoring team posts the end number next to the score they have now achieved. In this picture, Yellow scored 1 point in the first end, so they posted "1" along the yellow line over the green score of "1." In the second end, Red scored 3 points, so they posted the "2" along the red line under the green score of "3."
The furthest end number to the right represents the score on the center scale. In this case, Yellow won 8 to 6. So end by end:
- Yellow scored 1, score now 1-0 yellow
- Red scored 3, score now 3-1 red
- Yellow scored 3, score now 4-3 yellow
- Red scored 1, score now 4-4
- Yellow scored 1, score now 5-4 yellow
- Red scored 1, score now 5-5
- Yellow scored 1, score now 6-5 yellow
- Yellow stole 2, score now 8-5 yellow
- Red scored 1, final score 8-6 yellow
We call it a steal when a team scores in spite of not throwing the last rock (having the hammer). The H next to yellow indicates they had hammer in the first end.
If an end is blanked (no score), the number for that end is hung to the side of the scoreboard so you can see the end has been played.