PLAYING.--When the player is about to throw his stones, he places himself at one end of the rink, rests his right foot in a notch, or "hack" made in the ice,[1] and in such a relation to the tee that when he delivers his stone it must pass over it. He is directed by one of the players of his own party, styled the "skip" who stands at or near the tee to which the stone is to be played, and who usually makes use of his broom to indicate the point to which, or the line along which, he wishes the stone to be played. Should the stone be delivered with the proper degree of strength, and in the direction pointed out to the player by the skip, it will either rest at the spot required, or receiving, as the skip intended, a new direction by coming in contact with some other stone, will effect the desired purpose. The player on delivering his stone raises it off the ice, and swinging it once behind him to acquire a proper _impetus_, and to make surer of his aim, keeping his eye, at the same time, steadily fixed on the broom of the skip, or on any stone, or other object towards or against which he may be desired to play, throws it in that direction. The stone reaching the ice on its sole about two feet in front of the player--his body naturally following the same direction until the stone be fairly delivered. [1: Other contrivances than the hack are used in some places to prevent the foot of the player from slipping. Sometimes a thin board is laid on the ice, on which he places both his feet. At Toronto, the hack is considered the best, and although the Club has "crampits" for the benefit of those accustomed to them, they are required only by strangers or novices, experience demonstrating their uselessness.] * * * * * SWEEPING.--For the purpose of Sweeping, every player is furnished with a broom, by means of which the ice may sometimes be so polished that a stone may reach the tee, which, without sweeping, could not have passed the hog score. When a stone, therefore, in its progress up the rink appears to the skip to have been thrown with insufficient force, he directs his party to sweep the ice in its path. The party opposed to that whose stone is coming up is not allowed to sweep in front of the line drawn across the brough, but may sweep behind it, so as to let the stone, if it should pass the tee, go far enough beyond it, to lose the chance of counting.