Curling - 18 teams, 8 sheets of ice

[curlingmanager]

Help!
I need a round robin draw made up for 18 teams on 8 sheets of ice where each team plays as equal number of games on the sheets of ice as possible...in other words, a team doesn't want to have to play on a particular sheet 5 times in the round robin. Teams have left things to the last moment, so I suddenly need the draw asap...
Thanks so much,
Sheri
Portage Curling Club

[Ian Wakeling]

For a complete round robin there need to be at least 20 rounds with 7 free slots in total.  Below I have spread the free slots across 7 different sheets and also across the rounds.   Each team A to R plays either 2 or 3 times on each sheet of ice, and has 3 bye rounds.  Hope that helps.

Ian.

  S1    S2    S3    S4    S5    S6    S7    S8
(C P) (B F) (E J) (G K) (L M) (I N) (D R) (O Q)
(F M) (E I) (B K) (O P) (D H) (C L) (A Q) (J R)
(C G) (H K) (M Q) (B I) (E N) (A D) (J O) (---)
(D I) (G M) (A H) (E L) (P Q) (N R) (C K) (F J)
(F R) (H N) (A B) (E M) (G O) (J Q) (---) (L P)
(N Q) (G L) (H R) (D J) (C F) (B P) (A E) (I K)
(L R) (M O) (A G) (F N) (K P) (---) (C D) (B H)
(D Q) (A C) (F O) (E R) (G J) (K M) (I L) (B N)
(E K) (C H) (L O) (N P) (---) (F I) (B G) (Q R)
(A J) (D N) (K L) (B Q) (I R) (G H) (M P) (C E)
(J K) (O R) (D P) (---) (A M) (F H) (L N) (E G)
(G R) (B D) (F L) (H Q) (A I) (E P) (J M) (C O)
(H M) (E Q) (---) (I J) (B C) (A N) (K O) (F P)
(K N) (A R) (G I) (H O) (B L) (C J) (F Q) (D M)
(A P) (---) (J N) (D L) (M R) (E O) (C I) (F G)
(I O) (J P) (C Q) (A F) (E H) (B M) (G N) (D K)
(B E) (J L) (I M) (C R) (K Q) (D G) (H P) (A O)
(H L) (I Q) (P R) (A K) (B J) (D O) (E F) (M N)
(G P) (F K) (D E) (C M) (N O) (L Q) (B R) (H I)
(B O) (I P) (C N) (G Q) (D F) (K R) (H J) (A L)

[curlingmanager]

Thanks...

Oh, I am so sorry...I should have said 9 sheets of ice...we have 8 sheets that are full at 7pm and then the 9th game will be on at 9pm...so it's like 9 sheets for each day.
Sorry about that, my mistake.

[Ian Wakeling]

That's OK, it didn't take me long to make the schedule above.  Go for the "schedules" link near the top of this page.  Enter 18 items and click on "balanced" and you should get a suitable schedule.  Or the Excel spreadsheet here will do a similar thing if you choose "court/field" format.