It was an unusually tense exchange at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium Friday: Canadian curler Marc Kennedy cursed out Oskar Eriksson from the Swedish team, telling him, "You can f*** off."
The hot mic moment, streamed live to shocked curling fans, came after the 9th end, as the Canada vs. Sweden match – which Canada won 8-6 – drew towards a close.
The fallout challenges "the spirit of curling" and raises questions about the future of the sport.
Kennedy was angry because the Swedish team accused him repeatedly of cheating by touching a stone beyond the so-called "hog line."
In curling, players slide heavy granite rocks down sheets of ice. They must release the rock before a line drawn in the ice, the "hog line," or the stone is disqualified and taken out of play.
According to the Swedish team, Kennedy had been double-touching the stone – releasing the stone's handle, which contains electronic sensors, but then "poking the rock itself" and keeping a finger on it as it cruised over the line, Swedish curler Niklas Edin said after the match. "That's not allowed. It's pretty clearly stated," he said.
Edin accused Kennedy of doing the move on purpose. "You don't touch 20kg of granite with your fingertips without feeling it, it's completely impossible," Edin said, "We, in the sport, know how very few grams of pressure can change the speed when it already has a movement forward. You can move some degree of the angle (too)."
Curling officials, who are stationed at either end of the sheet, say they didn't see the violations so they couldn't call it.
And Kennedy, from Canada, denied it. "I've curled my whole life, never once with the intention of getting an advantage through cheating," he said after the match, "So when (my integrity) gets attacked, I get my back up and get a little bit aggressive." Still, "I could have handled it better. No question," Kennedy acknowledged, while refusing to apologize to Eriksson.
The rules were even more clearly stated after World Curling, the sport's official governing body, weighed in Saturday. "During forward motion, touching the granite of the stone is not allowed. This will result in the stone being removed from play," they said in a statement.
Despite video circulating on the internet, allegedly showing Kennedy's violations during the match, World Curling said they will not use video replays to re-litigate calls made by umpires during games. They pledged instead to assign officials to observe deliveries going forward.
They also issued a "verbal warning" to Canadian curling officials over Kennedy's language during the game.
Curling Rocked
The scandal has rocked the curling world, a wholesome, tight-knit community that prides itself on the "Spirit of Curling." It's a code of ethics that emphasizes good sportsmanship and respect for your opponents. Curlers are expected to celebrate good shots from all players, to refrain from distracting their opponentsto never break the rules on purpose, and to own up to it immediately if they commit a foul.
"Curling should be a gentlemen's sport," said Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson, the target of Kennedy's invective, "But perhaps it's come to a stage of professionalism where we drift away from that as some people think it's too important to win."
That's one topic in which Eriksson and Kennedy found common ground. "This whole trying to catch people in the act of an infraction and (doing) anything to win a medal, it sucks," Kennedy said February 16, "The whole spirit of curling is dead."
Some in the curling community consider the Swedes to be instigators too, by skirting protocol and directly accusing a player, instead of having the team's two skips, or team captains, work it out.
Consequences
World Curling's new policy of systematically observing players' throws lasted for a day.
In a Saturday afternoon women's match, between Canada and Switzerland, skip Rachel Homan's first rock was pulled by officials for the same "double touch" violation.
She wasn't the only one to have a rock pulled – Bobby Lammie, on Great Britain's men's team, had one disqualified in a match against Germany Sunday morning – but she still felt persecuted. "I don't understand the call. I'll never understand it … It has nothing to do with us," she said after the match, according to CBC.
By Sunday evening, the policy was pulled back. After meeting with curling officials from different countries, World Curling said umpires would remain available to observe throws – but would only do so "at the request of the competing teams."
It may have been disruptive to curlers to change the rules in the midst of the Olympics. Curlers anticipate debates and rule changes to come, such as whether video replays should be used to assist rulings, and what penalties curlers who break the rules incur.
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