By Kevin Snow
The electric atmosphere at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium continued Saturday, both on and off the ice.
The entire sports world was still buzzing 24 hours after the cheating allegations leveled by Sweden during their 8-6 loss to Canada on Friday.
At several points during the game, the Swedes were accusing their opponents of double-touching stones during delivery, with most of their ire directed towards Canadian third Marc Kennedy. A visibly angry Kennedy responded with a series of expletives aimed squarely at Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson.
That incident drew the eyeballs of the curling world and beyond.
Prior to Canada’s round-robin game with Switzerland on Saturday, World Curling representatives met with Canadian team officials and issued a formal warning against Kennedy for his part in Friday’s controversy.
From the World Curling statement: “During the meeting it was made clear to those officials that further inappropriate behavior, determined by rule R.19 would result in additional sanctions.”
Rule R.19 states: “Improper conduct, foul or offensive language, equipment abuse, or willful damage on the part of any team member is prohibited. Any violation may result in suspension of the offending person(s) by the curling organization having jurisdiction.”
It was a busy day for World Curling officials, as they also distributed a memo to all the teams clarifying their stance on stone releases:
- A double touch of the stone handle before the hog line at the delivery end is allowed.
- A re-touch of the stone handle after the hog line at the delivery end is not allowed and detected by the new handles.
- A stone must be delivered by using the handle of the stone.
- Touching the granite at any time during the forward motion is not allowed and considered a touched moving stone which results in the stone being removed from play.
- For any remaining sessions of the Olympic Games, we will have umpires observing the delivery. Any violation of rule R5 (d) will be called and the stone will need removed from play with no further warning.
When it came time to play an actual game, Canada took on Switzerland in a battle of two 3-0 teams. Led by the shooting wizardry of fourth Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel, Switzerland remains the tournament’s only undefeated rink with a decisive 9-5 victory in nine ends The game wasn’t without some controversy, although it didn’t rise to the level of Friday’s madness.
At a few points during the contest, members of the Swiss team were seen on camera conferring with coach Glenn Howard to discuss possible discrepancies with the Canadian releases.
However, nothing resulted from those conversations. Despite being in the middle of Friday’s firestorm, Kennedy shot 90 per cent against Sweden.
In Saturday’s loss to Switzerland, that number dipped to 78 per cent. Kennedy spoke with CBC’s Bryan Mudryk after the game and acknowledged that he probably let his emotions get the better of him on Friday.
“We had a good chat last night. I thanked my teammates for having my back. It wasn’t great. We’re looking forward to moving on from it," Kennedy said.
“To be completely honest with you, I probably could have handled myself better in the moment. My whole life, I’ve been a little bit like that if my integrity gets questioned. We’re human out there. There’s a lot of emotions. No question, I could have handled it better, though.”
Being on the Olympic stage provides a unique opportunity for the curling world every four years. With that moment comes the potential for continued growth in the sport. That responsibility isn’t lost on Kennedy.
“I know I'm a role model for Canadian curlers, so if I apologize at all, it’s to the young curlers around the country that would have expected more for me in that moment. [I feel] a little bit bad for it but also felt like I was defending and standing up for my teammates and myself in a moment where it was kind of tough on us all game, what Sweden was doing to us.
“Looking forward to moving on. The boys have been great with me. We had good energy today. We just got outplayed. So hopefully we can play a little better in the next one.”
Lead photo via Anil Mungal/TCG
