{"id":8419,"date":"2026-04-11T18:41:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/2026-olympic-curlings-big-stone-touching-controversy-is-raging-on-two-months-later-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T18:41:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:41:39","slug":"2026-olympic-curlings-big-stone-touching-controversy-is-raging-on-two-months-later-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/2026-olympic-curlings-big-stone-touching-controversy-is-raging-on-two-months-later-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Olympic curling\u2019s big stone-touching controversy is raging on two months later – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olympics
Canada's Marc Kennedy was at the center of a still-simmering Olympic dispute over the manner in which he delivered his stones. Andrew Milligan \/ PA Images via Getty Images<\/span>
TORONTO \u2014 Two months after the 2026 Winter Olympics, the controversy that rocked the curling tournament hasn\u2019t been swept away.
During the Olympics, Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson repeatedly called out Team Canada<\/a> \u2014 and specifically Marc Kennedy, who threw third stones for Canada \u2014 for double-touching a rock on the granite part after the point at which players must release the stone (known as the hog line). This ignited a firestorm in Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo, Italy, the Olympic host city, and resulted in officials monitoring athletes\u2019 stone deliveries and changes to the sport\u2019s rulebook.
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About two weeks ago, while competing at the World Curling Championships, a video<\/a> of Eriksson demonstrating how a double-touch infraction can impact a rock\u2019s trajectory appeared in Swedish media. Brad Jacobs \u2014 the Canadian skip who led the team to the Olympic gold medal<\/a> despite the controversy \u2014 said he will not just let it go.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething needs to happen here,\u201d Jacobs said this week. \u201cThere needs to be accountability. Everything that happened at the Olympics with this controversy was not handled properly, starting from the top down.\u201d
All of this has occurred amid the inaugural season of the Rock League<\/a>, curling\u2019s latest attempt at making the sport relevant year-round, which debuted this month in Toronto. While it\u2019s certainly an opportune time to reignite the fight that got everyone talking about the sport, Jacobs is not taking it lightly.
\u201cThey\u2019re nothing to me,\u201d he told The Athletic<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s quite simple, I act like they don\u2019t exist. I\u2019m very unhappy with all of their actions and things they\u2019ve done recently.\u201d
After the Olympics, the teams went their separate ways. Kennedy and Team Jacobs \u2014 including lead Ben Hebert and second Brett Gallant \u2014 participated in the Canadian men\u2019s national championship in February for a chance to represent the country at the world championships last month, but they came up short against Matt Dunstone and his rink.
Sweden\u2019s Team Edin \u2014 which includes skip Niklas Edin, Eriksson, Rasmus Wran\u00e5 and Christoffer Sundgren \u2014 represented their country at the men\u2019s World Curling Championship and defeated Dunstone\u2019s Canadian team in the final to win gold.
While competing at the world championships, Eriksson made a video demonstrating the double touch for Swedish media outlet SVT<\/a>, and it reached fans around the world. Eriksson\u2019s purpose, he said, was to show what the rule violation actually looked like.
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\u201cA lot of people have been talking about, like, \u2018You can\u2019t do anything with a finger on a 20-kilo granite rock<\/a>,’\u201d Eriksson explained after the Alpine Curling Club\u2019s game Thursday night at Rock League. \u201cBut when it\u2019s moving, it\u2019s quite easy to give it a small push, and you can actually change the angle quite a bit more than the speed. So (Swedish media) wanted to see how big of a difference you can make with just a small touch with the finger.\u201d
The timing of the reignited beef is auspicious for The Curling Group, which owns the Rock League and is driving the hopeful transformation of professional curling. Interest in curling is up this year, as the sport typically enjoys a moment in the spotlight every four years at the Winter Games before returning to the background.
Korey Dropkin, the American who won Olympic silver in mixed doubles<\/a> and captain of the Frontier Curling Club franchise at Rock League, said the controversy is great for the sport he grew up loving.
\u201cIt\u2019s perfect. You need to have rivalries,\u201d Dropkin said. \u201cYou need to have good guys and bad guys, right? So, when you have individuals who already bring a sense of that, I think it actually, in a way, can help viewership.
\u201cPeople like to see that in sports. Everyone loves a really good Red Sox-Yankees matchup. Everyone loves watching a Canada-United States battle of the border. Everyone\u2019s gonna love a good battle between Oskar Eriksson and Marc Kennedy. Of course, Marc\u2019s not here, but, you know what? You\u2019ve got Oskar and you\u2019ve got Brad, two of the best curlers to ever slide down the sheet of ice.\u201d
As for the word \u201ccheaters,\u201d Dropkin said it has no place in this discussion.
\u201cI don\u2019t believe that belongs,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that they are cheaters. Yes, there was an infraction \u2014 call it infractions, because it was not just once. At the end of the day, you have to take ownership for things you\u2019ve done. Apologies are appreciated. Because I think in general, we\u2019re all good people.\u201d
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The Rock League is also testing a variety of rule changes to curling, including hog-line challenges. Teams will have one challenge per game, and they must signal if they want to challenge a suspected infraction \u2014 similar to the new automated ball-strike (ABS) system in Major League Baseball.
Jacobs, who is the only member of the Canadian gold-medal contingent participating in Rock League, said he has not spoken to Eriksson this week in Toronto, nor does he plan on speaking to him anytime soon.
The two also play on the Grand Slam of Curling circuit with their quadrennial teams \u2014 squads put together for four-year stints in pursuit of Olympic glory \u2014 and will participate in the second season of Rock League, starting in October 2027. Eriksson confirmed that he hasn\u2019t interacted with Jacobs.
\u201cI shook his hand in the first game,\u201d he said. But otherwise? \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t look like he wants to.\u201d
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms
Find the hidden link between sports terms
Play today's puzzle<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OlympicsCanada's Marc Kennedy was at the center of a still-simmering Olympic dispute over the manner in which he delivered his stones. Andrew Milligan \/ PA Images via Getty ImagesTORONTO \u2014 Two months after the 2026 Winter Olympics, the controversy that rocked the curling tournament hasn\u2019t been swept away.During the Olympics, Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson repeatedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}