The curling ice on the Winter Olympics is usually stuffed with shouting—however not like this. Final Friday, in a match that Canada gained 8-6, a verbal altercation broke out between the third throwers from every crew. Close to the top 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 almost each main information outlet and had blown up on social media, inspiring scores of individuals to all of the sudden change into specialists on a 500-year-old Scottish sport. By the top 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 principles. (In the event that they didn’t have an opinion, they positively had a meme.) Almost all of them have been improper.
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 actually not an professional on how the sport is performed on the degree the place the handles have sensors. Nevertheless, from watching the tape and studying analysis by other curlers, it appears clear Kennedy violated the principles by touching the again of the rock after the nostril had touched the hog line. Nevertheless, it’s additionally seemingly that this had no influence on the end result—the violation entails a fraction of an inch, and the hog line is 93 ft from the middle of the goal on the opposite aspect. Gentle double-tapping of the rock earlier than the hog line additionally appears to be fairly common, as there are actually video edits purporting to indicate different groups, together with Sweden, doing the identical factor.
So, sure, the armchair curling specialists have a degree about Kennedy’s conduct on the ice. However they’re specializing in the improper infraction.
Curling has 1000’s of guidelines and customs, lots of them comparatively obscure. Any membership roller who cares concerning 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, is known as the spirit of curling: A real roller by no means makes an attempt to distract opponents, nor to stop them from taking part in their greatest, and would favor to lose quite than to win unfairly. That is the place this match went off the rails.
Curling is an historic sport with a classical sense of private honor, and it’s at all times higher to lose than have your opponent consider you gained unfairly. This is not ‘Nam, and there are rules. However not like, say, bowling, the principles begin and finish with a ruffled-silk code of gentlemanly conduct carried down from the Tudor interval.
There’s a first-rate instance of how a minor and inadvertent guidelines violation sometimes performs out from earlier in these Olympic Video games. In a doubles match between the US and Italy, one crew accidentally kicked their stone. The opposing crew trusted the kicker to place the stone again the place it belonged—judges weren’t referred to as in, and there was no cursing or accusations of dishonest.
The Sweden-Canada match was very totally different. For anybody eager to dig in a bit of 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 concerning the Swedes touching a chunk of their tools whereas the Canadians have been getting ready to throw. The Swedes go to the judges to complain concerning the double-touch and are rebuffed.
