By John Hodge
For all the adversity facing the Canadian men’s curling team at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, veteran skip Brad Jacobs has found a silver lining: the sport is finally getting the type of global exposure it has desperately sought for decades.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the negativity of everything that's going on … but when you actually look at everything that's gone on, and you consider how many eyeballs and clicks and everything turned to curling over the last, say, 48 to 72 hours, it’s probably the best thing ever for our sport,” said Jacobs.
“What does the world feed off nowadays? Is it positivity or negativity? Negativity, but that's OK. Like I said, all of that negativity brought a lot of eyeballs to the sport of curling that maybe have never even considered looking at curling before. The way I look at it, that's a really good thing for the sport.”
The controversy started on Friday night when Swedish third Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian third Marc Kennedy of double-touching stones during his delivery. Kennedy told Eriksson to “f--k off” multiple times amid a late-game verbal altercation, video of which immediately went viral. A clip of Kennedy’s supposed double-touch also went viral, drawing allegations of cheating from across the world.
Whether the world feeds off positivity or negativity is up for debate. If there’s one thing it unabashedly devours, however, it’s memes – the dumber the better.
Kennedy’s alleged rock poke has garnered millions of views online. Some clips simply show the unaltered footage, while others have been highly-edited to depict Kennedy poking figure skaters or hockey pucks. Others on social media have used artificial intelligence to depict Kennedy clumsily pushing opponent rocks out of the house and placing a Canadian stone on the button while unleashing an animalistic scream. While utterly ridiculous, these videos have garnered millions and millions of views.
@teamkenriksson I like curling now #heatedrivalry #Kenriksson #olympics #curling #winterolympics @Team Canada @Swedish Olympic Team @World Curling @CBC Olympics @Milano Cortina 2026 @Olympics ♬ original sound - Kenriksson
On Saturday, a TikTok user named "Teamkenriksson" created an account satirizing the confrontation between Eriksson and Kennedy in the style of hit Canadian television show Heated Rivalry. The account has posted several highlight edits of Eriksson and Kennedy arguing while intense music plays in the background. As of this article’s publishing, the account has garnered close to 2.3 million views and almost 200,000 likes.
This type of content is inarguably low-brow and stupid, but it’s also providing curling with something it desperately needs: eyeballs. Brands spend millions of dollars for this type of publicity, particularly in online spaces like TikTok that have relatively young user bases. And with Rock League launching its first season this coming April, with 38 Olympians taking part, simply having millions talking about the sport is a step in the right direction.
Though he doesn’t seem to be dwelling on the controversy, Kennedy also doesn’t appear preoccupied with finding a silver lining. He believes curling, which has historically been self-officiated, has been fundamentally corrupted by teams that will do anything to gain a competitive advantage.
“The whole spirit of curling is dead, unfortunately,” said Kennedy. “We’ve played the game at a high level long enough where we weren’t looking for infractions. We don’t look for infractions at Grand Slams. We don’t look for that kind of stuff on tour. We just trust that the people around us aren’t trying to cheat.”
“There might be small infractions here and there, but most of the time you shrug it off because you’ve got so much respect for the players you’re playing against. This whole trying to catch people in the act of an infraction and (doing) anything to win a medal, it sucks. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
During the Canadian women’s 10-5 win over China on Monday morning, skip Rachel Homan had an umpire watch her deliveries for multiple ends after the Chinese complained to officials. None of her rocks were pulled, as happened in the first end of her team’s 8-7 loss to Switzerland on Saturday night.
“We expect that from that team. We wouldn’t expect it from certain teams, but it’s going to happen. It’s at the Olympics. Everyone wants to make sure that everything is done appropriately, and they have every right to do that,” said Homan.
“(Watching our opponents closely is) not a part of our game. You go over the hog line? We don’t care. We’re in our game, we’re focused on our game. We want to make shots out there, we want to play fierce, play with pride, and give all we have. That’s all we can do, that’s what’s in our control.”
“There’s always something blowing up at the Olympics,” said Canadian second Emma Miskew. “This year, it’s this. It’s all good. We’ll get through it, and I think that it’ll die down eventually."
The Canadian women had a strong day on Monday, knocking off China in the morning and Japan in the evening. Homan had her two best games of the event thus far, throwing 85 and 84 percent, respectively, while lead Sarah Wilkes threw a brillant 96 percent against China.
Tardi's Olympic debut
Tyler Tardi, the alternate for the Canadian men’s team, filled in for lead Ben Hebert during the late stages of Monday afternoon’s 8-2 win over Czechia, giving the 27-year-old native of Richmond, B.C. his first on-ice experience at the Olympics.
“I wasn't expecting it and I'm super honoured to be able to have that opportunity,” said Tardi. “I don’t think words are ever going to describe how I’m feeling right now. It’s a huge honour just to represent and watch the guys, but to stand on the ice and actually play, it’s thrilling.”
Tardi is somewhat of a TikTok star himself, boasting over 10,000 followers on the platform along with millions of views.
“We didn't hesitate (to put in Tardi). Once we were up 7-1, we all kind of looked at one another and said, ‘Should we get the kid in? This might be our only opportunity.’ We agreed to get him in,” said Jacobs. “It was nice to see his face and eyes light up, and he was ready for the moment. He came out and he curled 100 percent.”
No more changes incoming
It doesn’t appear World Curling will make any further changes to officiating in Italy this week. In response to the initial controversy, two umpires were stationed on the ice to monitor all four sheets for illegal deliveries. World Curling reversed this decision in time for the Sunday evening draw, returning to only monitoring potential violations at the request of teams, as is typical at major curling events.
“(It’s) kind of that ‘gentlemen’ idea (that’s dying out): I know you're not trying to do something with the intent of getting an advantage on me, and you know I’m not trying to do the same to you,” said Kennedy. “If I do an infraction out there – if I’m moving around when you’re throwing, or if you go a little bit over the hog line at a tour event – it just is what it is. It's always been that way.”
“We love the idea of self-policing. If somebody does something out of hand, it just gets dealt with in the moment, and you move on, not needing the officials to manage our game.”
“That's where the spirit of curling is in a little bit of trouble, and, honestly, that's probably come from the quest for medals, but it's OK. It's all about the evolution of the sport. There's opportunity here, as well, for the sport to really figure it out as we go forward.”
