Canadian curler Marc Kennedy drops F-bombs after cheating accusations by Sweden at Olympics
· Toronto Sun
There’s a new heated rivalry on the ice and it involves the men’s Olympics curlers from Canada and Sweden.
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Friday night in Italy saw sparks fly ahead of the ninth end when Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accused Canada’s Marc Kennedy of cheating.
A day later, the Canadian team accused Sweden of illegally filming the hog line during the match as the story has now made international headlines.
Eriksson, who is Team Niklas Edin’s third, claimed on Friday that Team Brad Jacobs’ third was committing hog line violations by touching the granite part of the stone after letting go of the handle.
“Apparently it’s OK touching the rock after the hog line,” Eriksson said out loud within earshot of the Canadian curlers .
“Who’s doing it?” Kennedy turned around and asked.
Eriksson claimed the Canadians had touched the rock beyond the hog line a couple of times. While he didn’t come out and say who committed the infractions, the Swedish curler pointed to Kennedy.
“I haven’t done it once,” Kennedy replied. “You can f— off.”
Eriksson questioned his response, but Kennedy firmly denied the accusation.
“I’ll show you a video after the game,” Eriksson shot back.
Kennedy then complained about Sweden’s third walking around and “dancing in the house” while the Canadians were making their shots before dropping more spicy language.
“C’mon Oskar, just f— off,” Kennedy said, added another expletive for good measure.
The Swedes apparently approached an official earlier in the match about the Canadians allegedly double-touching their stones.
Cooler heads would prevail as Canada would win the matchup 8-6 to go to 3-0 in the round robin standings, while Sweden dropped to 0-3.
Following the game, Eriksson spoke about the heated exchange that erupted on the ice.
“We tried to play an honest and fair game and it’s been on the wall, the last couple of years, people are touching the rock after the hog line or even before the hog line,” Eriksson told CBC in the mixed zone.
“The only part that you can touch is the handle. There’s only one part where the sensor is, so if you touch anything else, it’s a burnt rock, if it’s with the hand, your foot, your broom, it’s a burnt rock.”
Kennedy said, while he has lots of respect for Eriksson as a player, being accused of cheating by the Swedes was “horsesh–.”
“We didn’t like it,” Kennedy told CBC . “We’re the wrong team to accuse of cheating in the ninth end of a game, so we didn’t take very kindly to it. We let him know what we think and then we moved on and played a good 10th end. Sometimes it gets a little heated.”
On Saturday, the Canadian curler said he regretted the profanity used during the match.
“I don’t regret defending myself or my teammates in that moment,” Kennedy said. “I just probably regret the language I used.”
World Curling said, following the complaint by Sweden, officials spoke with both teams and monitored every delivery for three ends.
“There were no hog line violations or retouches of the stone during the observation,” the organization said in a statement .
In addition, World Curling also issued a verbal warning to Canadian officials for the profanities used by Kennedy during the game and warned that any more outbursts would lead to additional sanctions.
However, the curling controversy continued Saturday when Kennedy said he believes someone on Sweden’s side was filming his deliveries during the match, which is a no-no at the Olympics.
“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 .
“This was planned, right from the word go (Friday). From the words that were being said by their coaches and the way they were running to the officials, it was kind of evident that something was going on, and they were trying to catch us in an act.”
A video that appears to have been recorded from the stands was shared online following the game and has gone viral.
During one shot, Kennedy is filmed as he releases the stone and appears to stretch out a finger.
Team Sweden denied any inappropriate recordings and claimed the video came from the Swedish public broadcaster.
Only cameras from the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) are allowed to film events during the Winter Games.
“I was surprised that there was a live video on the hog line outside of OBS rules,” Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen told reporters. “That seems odd to me.”
Meanwhile, the “double touch” controversy reared its ugly head on the women’s side of the tournament on Saturday morning when Canadian skip Rachel Homan had a rock removed from play when she was seen by an official touching the stone after releasing it during a match against Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni.
Homan denied coming in contact with her rock a second time despite the official’s ruling.
“I don’t understand the call,” she told reporters. “I’ll never understand it. Never done that. Has nothing to do with us. Refs shouldn’t be in our game, there’s no infractions on the women’s side at all. It was absurd.”