Canada and Sweden faced off in curling on Friday, as the men's tournament finally began. However, controversy has completely taken over the event, as Canada was accused of cheating in the contest that led to an 8-6 win for the team. Things got heated during the contest, as Sweden accused Canada of cheating during the game.
Oskar Eriksson of Team Sweden accused Marc Kennedy of Team Canada of touching the stone beyond the “hog line.” The rules of curling state that once a stone is beyond the “hog line,” it can no longer be touched. That accusation led to Kennedy using NSFW words at Eriksson, as the Canadian curler denies any notion of cheating.
“Everything's okay touching the rock after the hog line, I don't know,” said Eriksson to Kennedy.
“Who's doing it?” asked Kennedy.
“You don't know it?” responded Eriksson.
“Who?” Kennedy asked again.
“It's a couple. It's a couple,” said Eriksson.
After Kennedy asked “who” once more, Eriksson pointed at Kennedy and one of his fellow Canadian teammates.
“I haven't done it once,” argued Kennedy. “You can f*** off.”
“You haven't done it once?” asked Eriksson.
“I haven't done it once. Don't chirp,” proclaimed Kennedy.
“I'll show you a video after the game,” Eriksson responded.
“How about you walking around in my peel in my last [turn], dancing around the house. How about that? Come on, Oskar. Just f*** off,” said Kennedy.
“Want me to show you the video?” asked Eriksson.
“I don't give a s***. He (points at an official) was standing here and didn't call it,” said Kennedy.
Players can touch the handle of the stone before the “hog line,” but once the stone is beyond that point, nobody is allowed to touch the stone at all. The video that Sweden's Oskar Eriksson mentioned in his spat with Canada's Marc Kennedy was the slow-motion replay during Friday's broadcast. Unfortunately for Eriksson, video replay is not used in curling, and a judge's ruling is final.
In that video, it's hard to tell when, or if, Kennedy touched the stone beyond the “hog line.” It may be one of those situations where it was too close to call for the officials. At the very least, however, it is noteworthy that World Curling found no violations of cheating from Canada in their match against Sweden in the Winter Olympics, according to Paulina Dedaj of Fox News.
“Game Umpires are situated at the end of each sheet and physically cannot see every delivery infraction. However, when they are made aware of delivery issues, game umpires are positioned to observe the delivery for three ends. During this period of observation in the Friday evening game, there were no violations recorded,” said World Curling.
