Canada men’s curling remained undefeated in round-robin competition Friday during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, but only after tension overheated on the ice.
In the ninth end of an 8-6 Canadien victory over 2022 Olympic champion Sweden, which is now a ghastly 0-3 in its gold-medal defense, Swedish third Oskar Eriksson levied a serious cheating allegation.
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He did so against Canadian third Marc Kennedy, whom Eriksson accused of double-touching stones after releasing them at the hog line.
«I haven’t done it once,” Kennedy said. “You can f*** off.»
Eriksson then asked, «You haven’t done it once?»
An impassioned Kennedy reiterated while pointing toward himself, «I haven’t done it once.»
Calmly, Eriksson said back, «I’ll show you a video after the game.»
The heated back-and-forth continued, with Kennedy hurling more profanities Eriksson’s way.
As former competitive curler and current CBC Olympics analyst John Cullen explained on X during the match, touching the back of the stone after letting it go is technically against the rules.
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But Cullen noted that it’d likely take an obvious double-touching for action to be taken by officials.
By rule, a double touch prior the hog line — the boundary before which the thrower must release the stone for it to be considered in play — isn’t considered a violation.
Long before the exchange between Eriksson and Kennedy in the ninth end, Sweden asked officials to watch for Canada double-touching. Canada requested that officials also keep an eye on Swedes’ deliveries.
In a statement, as reported by Reuters, World Curling said that umpires were at monitoring the hog line for three ends after the issue was first brought up.
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«There were no hog line violations or retouches of the stone during the observation,» the statement said, per Reuters.
Kennedy told the National Post afterward that playing the Swedes is a battle and that the teams have quite a bit of history that goes back several years.
«I have a ton of respect for Oskar Eriksson,» he said, per the National Post. «He’s one of the best players to ever play. I just told him … I would never accuse you of cheating. I’ve been on tour for 25 years. He pulled a hog line official on us to make sure we weren’t double-touching. The hog line official was there … never said a thing, and he’s still talking about it in the ninth end.»
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Swedish skip Niklas Edin was disappointed the quarrel took place.
«We’re all super good friends out there,» he said, per Reuters.
«We’ve known them for 20 years. And it’s [rule violations] happened many times before, so it’s just sad that it gets to heated discussions on the ice instead of just curling, according to the rulebooks, but it’s what it is.»
