In curling, a rink or Skip is said to have "the hammer" if they will take the last shot of the end. A coin is flipped to determine who has the hammer in the first end; after that, the team that does not score in an end gets the hammer in the next end. In the case of a blank end, the hammer is retained by the team that had it last.
In a close game, winning or losing may be determined by who has the hammer in the final end. A skip will often chose to forgo scoring a single point, and blank an end, in order to retain the hammer.