The Curling Controversy at the Winter Olympics Isn’t What You Think

Ice curling at the Winter Olympics is often full of shouting, but not like this. Last Friday, during a game won 8-6 by Canada, a verbal altercation broke out between the third pitchers of each team. Late in the match, after a debate over minor rules reached its crescendo, Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson passive-aggressively accused Canadian vice-captain Marc Kennedy of cheating. Kennedy immediately declared that he “didn’t care,” twice telling Eriksson to “fuck off.”

Within hours, the story was covered by almost every major media outlet and exploded on social media, prompting many people to suddenly become experts on a 500-year-old Scottish sport. By the end of the weekend, they all had strong opinions on whether or not Kennedy had touched the curling stone after dropping it, in violation of the rules. (If they didn’t have an opinion, they certainly had a meme.) Almost all of them were wrong.

I have been a club curler for four years in a Thursday night beer league and a multiple time Bracket D champion of local tournaments. Simply put: I understand the sport and its culture, but I’m certainly not an expert on how the game is played at the level where the handles are equipped with sensors. However, after watching tape and reading analysis from other curlers, it seems clear that Kennedy violated the rules by touching the back of the stone after his nose touched the hog line. However, it’s also likely that this had no impact on the outcome: the violation is a fraction of an inch, and the hog line is 93 feet from the center of the target on the other side. Light double tapping on the stone before the line of play also appears to be quite common, as there are now video montages purporting to show other teams, including Sweden, doing the same thing.

So yes, the wheelchair curling experts are right about Kennedy’s behavior on the ice. But they are focusing on the wrong offense.

Curling has thousands of rules and customs, many of which are relatively obscure. Any club curler who cares about minutia will have both bought and received many pints betting on the current state of regulations on warming ice in the house or sweeping by single-shot snow plow. But the first rule, and one that is never up for debate, is called the spirit of curling: A true curler never tries to distract his opponents, nor prevent them from playing their best, and would rather lose than win unfairly. This is where this match went off the rails.

Curling is an ancient sport with a classic sense of personal honor, and it’s always better to lose than let your opponent think you won unfairly. It’s not ‘Nam, and there are rules. But unlike, say, bowling, the rules begin and end with a ruffled-silk gentlemanly code of behavior, inherited from the Tudor period.

There is a great example of how a minor, unintentional rule violation usually occurs earlier in these Olympic Games. During a doubles match between the United States and Italy, one team accidentally hit their stone. The opposing team trusted the kicker to put the stone back where it belonged: no judge was called and there were no insults or accusations of cheating.

The Sweden-Canada match was very different. For anyone who wants to dig a little deeper into the altercation, NBC has posted an excellent extended version of the confrontation on YouTube, which shows the fracas starting to heat up in the sixth end, just after the middle of play, before peaking in the ninth end. The full version is revealing. The Canadians approach the judges with prickly complaints about the Swedes touching a piece of their equipment as they prepared to throw. The Swedes go to the judges to complain about the double touch and are rebuffed.