By Adam Laskaris
Canadian Olympic curler Marc Kennedy thinks that any accusation of him cheating are "total horsesh--".
The 44-year-old Canadian curler, now particpating in his fourth Olympic Winter Games, was suddenly at the centre of controversy on Friday during and after his team's 8-6 win over Sweden.
CBC broke down the controversy around Kennedy's release, which the Swedish side flagged to an official early in the game. The CBC video includes both an example of the incident as well as an exchange between the two teams.
"We tried to play an honest and a fair game and it's been on the wall, the last couple of years... people are touching the rock after the hog line and even before the hog line and the only part that you can touch is the handle. There's only one part where it is and so you touch anything else, it's a burnt rock, with your hand or foot or broom.. it's a burnt rock," Sweden's Oskar Eriksson said in the mixed zone following the game, per CBC.
Kennedy sent some expletives towards the Swedish team during the ninth end, and denied any accusations of wrongdoing, stating that the officials were following their team closely for six ends and flagged no further shots. He did not comment on his unique release, which appears in a circulating video from Sweden (shown at the 5:13 mark above) to show him making contact with the rock with the tip of his finger following his initial release.
"Oskar Eriksson is a wonderful player, and we have a ton of respect for him... he was just accusing us of cheating, and doing something we shouldn't be doing, which is total horsesh--," Kennedy replied, per CBC. "We didn't like it. We're the wrong team to accuse of cheating in the ninth end of a game... we didn't take very kindly to it. We let him know what we think... and then we moved on and played a good tenth end. Sometimes it gets a little heated. They were 0-2, they were grasping for straws trying to stay alive. I think that's all it was... I think it's just the wrong team to do it to today."
Canada hits the ice tomorrow against Switzerland at 8:05 a.m. ET, while Sweden plays China at the same time.
A full breakdown of the incident is available via John Hodge here.
Lead photo by Anil Mungal/TCG
