Curling World Curling Tour to make the games only eight ends. Most tournaments on that tour are eight ends, as are the vast majority of recreational games. In international competition, each side is given 73 minutes to complete all of its throws. Each team is also allowed two minute-long timeouts per 10-end game. If extra ends are required, each team is allowed 10 minutes of playing time to complete its throws and one added 60-second timeout for each extra end. However, the "thinking time" system, in which the delivering team's game timer stops as soon as the shooter's rock crosses the
Curling the game. The 1990 Brier was considered by many curling fans as boring to watch because of the amount of peeling and the quick adoption of the Free Guard Zone the following year reflected how disliked this aspect of the game had become. The free guard zone was originally called the Modified Moncton Rule and was developed from a suggestion made by Russ Howard for the Moncton 100 cashspiel (with the richest prize ever awarded at the time in a tournament) in Moncton, New Brunswick, in January 1990. "Howard's Rule" (later known as the Moncton Rule), used for the tournament