As a sport most people pay intense attention to for two weeks every four years and then not at all the rest of the time, curling can be slightly impenetrable to the casual viewer; its intricacies and shibboleths even more so. As the cheating brouhaha between Sweden and Canada enters Day 3, we thought it would be useful to answer some questions you might have over this icy scandal.
What happened?
On Feb. 13, Canada defeated Sweden 8-6 in a men's team round-robin match. The round-robin matches determine who gets into the medal rounds. Early in the game, Sweden accused Canada's curlers of "double-touching" their stones after they'd passed the hog line, and asked officials to keep an eye on the Canadians for further violations. In response, Canada petulantly asked officials to monitor the Swedes for illegal shots as well.
Late in the match, when Canada's victory was nearly assured likely, Canada's Marc Kennedy and Sweden's Oskar Eriksson got into another angry exchange. Eriksson told Kennedy that if he doubted he had double-touched, he'd happily provide video of it. Kennedy responded, "You can fuck off."
Wait. What is double-touching?
Curlers must release their stone before any part of it crosses the hog line, the green line that stretches the width of the ice. To give the stone a nudge after it has passed the line would give curlers a little extra control over their shots, and is illegal. A double-touched stone is to be removed from play, as if it had never been shot.
Why is it called the hog line?
Great question. Something to do with hogs, I imagine.
Did officials penalize Kennedy?
They did not, for two reasons. One is key to this whole blow-up: Curling is something of a gentlemen's game, where players are expected to police themselves. You'll see that periodically when a player admits to accidentally touching a stone with their foot while sweeping in the house. It looks like good sportsmanship, and it is, but it's also expected. An official is not necessarily closely monitoring the hog line on each throw; in fact, with up to four games going on simultaneously, there physically aren't enough referees to watch every shot.
The second reason is the amazingly named Eye on the Hog. This electronic system in the stone handles is supposed to light up if a curler touches it beyond the hog line. Eye on the Hog has only been used sporadically since its introduction about 20 years ago, due to more technical failures than organizers would prefer, but it's in place in Cortina.
Did the Eye on the Hog light up on any of Canada's shots?
You just wanted to say "Eye on the Hog" again, didn't you? The answer is no. But Eriksson said he believed Kennedy touched the stone itself, not the handle, so it wouldn't have lit up anyway.
What wouldn't have lit up?
...
...
The Eye on the Hog.
Yes! So ... this feels like a pretty big question, given all the controversy that preceded and followed: Did Kennedy actually cheat, or not?
Oh yeah, he cheated as hell.
That's pretty clear. Was that the end of it?
It was not. After the match, Kennedy was still steamed. “I don’t like being accused of cheating, so I told him what I thought of it,” he told reporters. "He’s still accusing us of cheating. I didn’t like it. So I told him where to stick it."
Niklas Edin, Sweden's skip, fired back with, “It’s a little sad they start screaming instead of just taking it and doing better."
How much of an advantage does double-touching give you?
Basically none. It's guiding the stone an inch or so beyond the line, when the stone still has 93 feet left to travel. One NBC analyst compared it to a foot fault in tennis: technically illegal, but so minor and so rarely called that players freak out when it is.
What came of the accusation? Is anyone going to do anything?
A whole bunch of statements were put out. World Curling issued one about a verbal warning it had issued Kennedy for saying "fuck." (You're not supposed to say "fuck" while curling.) Curling Canada issued one noting that officials had not actually caught Kennedy or any other Canadian curler double-touching. World Curling issued another statement, this one reminding athletes of the rules of releasing a stone, and promised that referees will be watching closely for double-touching for the rest of these Olympics.
Has anyone gotten caught?
Oh, yeah. Would you believe it, Canada again. The next day, Canada's women's team was called for a double-touch during their match against Switzerland. Skip Rachel Homan was whistled for the violation in the first end, and was incredulous. “Absolutely not,” Homan protested to officials. “Zero percent chance. There’s no way." (Video replays showed Homan double-touching the stone.)
Homan's stone was removed from play. Canada would fall to the Swiss 8-7 in 11 ends.
“Yeah it’s frustrating, the officials getting into the game that they have no business getting into, and, yeah, it’s frustrating when there’s nothing to even look for," Homan said after the match. Obviously it rattles you and we fought hard and we lost in an extra by one point. It’s just a shame that had to happen."
Surely that was the end of it.
That was not the end of it. Marc Kennedy's still mad, only now he's mad about the video showing him double-touching. He accused Sweden of a grand scheme to capture their opponents on camera, calling it "a premeditated plan to try to catch us.”
"They have come up with a plan here at the Olympics, as far as I know, to catch teams in the act at the hog line,” Kennedy told reporters on Saturday. "This was planned, right from the word go yesterday."
Does he have a point?
Kind of! There's not usually a camera along the hog line. But according to Swedish public broadcaster SVT, which is airing the Olympics in Sweden, they relocated a camera operator after the double-touch allegations had been made earlier in the Friday match. That's how they captured the perfect angle of Kennedy's double-touch in the eighth end.
What's wrong with that?
Either nothing or everything. The Swedes would call it gamesmanship. The Canadians would call it unsportsmanlike. Kennedy's anger goes back to the earlier point about curling historically having been self-policed by players; they'd argue it's poor form and against the sport's traditions to call out an opponent for something as minor as a double-touch, even if it is technically a violation.
"If somebody said to you, 'Hey, do you double-touch all the time?' I honestly, in that split second of a moment, I couldn't even tell you if I do or not," Kennedy said. He added that he has never once acted "with the intention of getting an advantage through cheating," though intention isn't mentioned in the rulebook.
So the controversy is really over the letter of the law vs. the spirit?
That's a good way to think about it. A normal bonspiel (tournament) has the vibes of you and your buds going bowling after work. Sipping beers, sucking darts. You'd get pretty heated if your friend suddenly accused you of stepping over the line.
But this is not a normal bonspiel. It's the Olympics.
Yep. This is the pinnacle of four years of training and play. No matter how minuscule an advantage double-touching might be, nobody wants their Olympic opponent to have an illicit edge.
Maybe Canada was particularly salty because their country's not doing so hot in these Olympics? They have as many golds as traditional Winter Games nonentities Kazakhstan and Brazil. Perhaps Kennedy's feeling the pressure of a disappointed nation?
That's not for me to say.
Maybe the Eye on the Hog can tell us.
This explainer is over.
