Eight-ender

Curling

Final stone placement when Kelly Scott scored an eight-ender against Cathy King at the 2006 Player's Championship

An eight-ender is a perfect score within a single end of curling, with one team scoring the maximum possible value of eight points—one for each rock the team put in play during the end.

An eight-ender is analogous to a perfect game in baseball, a perfect game in bowling (300) or a nine-dart finish in darts. Such a feat is extremely unusual at any level. To score an eight-ender almost always requires employment of an unusually aggressive strategy (in particular, eschewing the placement of guards, which usually do not score, especially with the early stones of an end) in addition to some combination of mistake-free play, poor play from the opposing team and good luck.

Eight-enders are even more rare in competitive curling. They are so uncommon that the Canadian Curling Association has an award to recognize any eight-ender scored in Canada.^[1] The eight-ender in team curling is analogous to the six-ender in mixed doubles curling, as there is a total of six rocks in play per team instead of eight.

There has never been an eight-ender in Olympic competition, the closest being a 'seven-ender' scored by Great Britain's Eve Muirhead at the 2014 Winter Olympics, in a 12–3 round-robin stage victory over the United States.^[2] In mixed doubles curling, the maximum score of six has been achieved at the Olympics, with Switzerland's Jenny Perret and Martin Rios doing so against the United States in the last end of their 9–4 round-robin win at the 2018 Winter Olympics.^[3] Eight-enders have never been scored at the Brier or Tournament of Hearts. The only eight-ender during the World Curling Championships was accomplished by Switzerland during the 2021 World Women's Curling Championship.