By Ben Hoppe, U.S. curling writer
While a number of curlers from around the world were implementing the new slow-carve sweeping technique over the last year, perhaps no team was using it more prominently than the United States’ Team Casper.
Casper referred to the sweeping style as "ditching," not just referencing their manipulation of the rock, but also a clever ode to one of their primary sponsors.
World Curling announced a new Sweeping Technique Policy on Tuesday, effectively banning this avenue for rock manipulation.
Those who watched Team Casper over their successful run have seen them implement this single-stroke sweeping technique with success. There is little question, however, that it caught more attention than normal with the team’s run at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in November and again a few weeks later at the Olympic Qualifying Event in Kelowna, B.C. Second Ben Richardson found himself as a Whiff of the Week candidate at the HearingLife Canadian Open when he fell while jumping into a slow-carve, a method primarily seen from a few U.S. curlers.
"We weren’t the first ones to do this," noted Team Casper lead Aidan Oldenburg in a call on Tuesday afternoon. "We were just a little more obvious."
Oldenburg acknowledged he understands what World Curling is saying with the new policy, but the team’s primary concerns are not the banning of the technique as they are with the policing.
"The way the policies are written, there’s a lot of different things you can interpret," Oldenburg said.
Empowering officials to issue warnings and remove rocks from play marks a shift in a sport that has been, for better or worse, primarily self-officiated.
"It’s going to be interesting policing it," said skip Danny Casper. "But I’m sure they’ll get it figured out. [I’m] not too worried about it."
The team was not contacted by World Curling or the World Curling Athlete Commission with the implementation of the new policy, but that was nothing new for the U.S. men’s Olympic representatives, who had not received any backlash from anyone to this point.
"I’ve always been telling people, everyone was more than welcome to come up and say something, but nobody did," Casper said. "They changed the rule, no worries at all."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the team hadn’t been able to discuss the changes with each other too much. All of the players have full-time jobs outside of curling, and with the release coming just ahead of their opening draw loss to China’s Xu Xiaoming, they will certainly have more time to work through their team systems.
While the policy is something they will need to adapt to, Casper didn’t put a lot of stock into its overall impact, indicating they care a lot less than people might think.
The biggest loser in all of this might be their primary sponsor, whose company name will no longer be shouted on sweep calls.
While they may have been the most prominent users of the slow-carve, their breakout in the 2025-26 season was not due to a sweeping technique.
The team has been steadily improving in recent seasons and nearly won the U.S. Men’s National Championship last year, until an outstanding shot from Korey Dropkin temporarily slowed their rising stock.
A change in sweeping should be nothing more than a small bump in the road for the United States’ rising stars.
