The curling ice on the Winter Olympics is commonly filled with shouting—however not like this. Final Friday, in a match that Canada received 8-6, a verbal altercation broke out between the third throwers from every group. Close to the tip of the match, after a debate over minor guidelines reached its crescendo, Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson passive-aggressively accused Canadian vice-skip Marc Kennedy of dishonest. Kennedy promptly declared that he “didn’t give a shit,” twice telling Eriksson to “fuck off.”
Inside hours, the dustup had been lined by practically each main information outlet and had blown up on social media, inspiring scores of individuals to out of the blue turn out to be consultants on a 500-year-old Scottish sport. By the tip of the weekend, all of them had a fully-formed opinion on whether or not Kennedy had touched the curling stone after releasing it, in violation of the foundations. (In the event that they didn’t have an opinion, they undoubtedly had a meme.) Practically all of them had been fallacious.
I’m a four-year membership roller in a Thursday-night beer league and multiple-time D-bracket champion of native bonspiels. In layman’s phrases: I perceive the game and its tradition however am definitely not an professional on how the sport is performed on the stage the place the handles have sensors. Nevertheless, from watching the tape and studying analysis by other curlers, it appears clear Kennedy violated the foundations by touching the again of the rock after the nostril had touched the hog line. Nevertheless, it’s additionally doubtless that this had no influence on the outcome—the violation includes a fraction of an inch, and the hog line is 93 toes from the middle of the goal on the opposite facet. Gentle double-tapping of the rock earlier than the hog line additionally appears to be fairly common, as there at the moment are video edits purporting to indicate different groups, together with Sweden, doing the identical factor.
So, sure, the armchair curling consultants have some extent about Kennedy’s conduct on the ice. However they’re specializing in the fallacious infraction.
Curling has hundreds of guidelines and customs, lots of them comparatively obscure. Any membership roller who cares in regards to the minutia could have each purchased and acquired loads of pints in bets revamped the present standing of laws on warming the ice in the house or single-stroke snowplow sweeping. However the first rule, and one which’s by no means up for debate, known as the spirit of curling: A real roller by no means makes an attempt to distract opponents, nor to stop them from enjoying their greatest, and would favor to lose moderately than to win unfairly. That is the place this match went off the rails.
Curling is an historical sport with a classical sense of non-public honor, and it’s all the time higher to lose than have your opponent imagine you received unfairly. This is not ‘Nam, and there are rules. However in contrast to, say, bowling, the foundations begin and finish with a ruffled-silk code of gentlemanly conduct carried down from the Tudor interval.
There’s a main instance of how a minor and inadvertent guidelines violation usually performs out from earlier in these Olympic Video games. In a doubles match between the US and Italy, one group accidentally kicked their stone. The opposing group trusted the kicker to place the stone again the place it belonged—judges weren’t known as in, and there was no cursing or accusations of dishonest.
The Sweden-Canada match was very completely different. For anybody desirous to dig in a little bit deeper on the altercation, NBC has uploaded an excellent long-cut version of the showdown on YouTube, which reveals the fracas starting to warmth up within the sixth finish, simply previous the midpoint of the sport, earlier than peaking within the ninth finish. The total model is telling. The Canadians go to the judges with ticky-tacky complaints in regards to the Swedes touching a bit of their tools whereas the Canadians had been getting ready to throw. The Swedes go to the judges to complain in regards to the double-touch and are rebuffed.
