Olympic curling controversy might not be such bad publicity, after all

By WILL GRAVES, Associated Press

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The world of curling has spent decades trying to figure out a way to raise its profile beyond the “once-every-four-years” curiosity it becomes during the Winter Olympics.

Turns out, all it took was a graze of a finger on a 40ish-pound piece of granite, an allegation caught on camera followed by an impassioned expletive-laden response.

Social media and the white-hot spotlight that only the Games provide did the rest.

The animated back-and-forth between Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson and Canada’s Marc Kennedy during a match Saturday night — when Eriksson accused Kennedy of an illegal “double touch” — managed to do in a handful of seconds what years of promotion by those within the sport that looks like a combination of shuffleboard, chess and vacuuming the living room could not: cut through the noise to push it to the front of the line, ahead of the skiers and skaters and snowboarders that typically dominate the conversation whenever the Games roll around.

Alina Paetz watched the proof unfold in real time. The longtime Swiss curler was scrolling on her phone over the weekend when she ran across a headline about it from celebrity-focused “People” magazine, not exactly considered a go-to for all things curling.

“That’s pretty new,” Paetz said.

A lot of this kind of is.

There is no such thing as bad publicity

Here is the delicate part for those within a sport that dates back centuries and is steadily cultivating a larger fanbase. Does it matter that the gateway for many into curling is two guys snapping at each other and not an exquisite takeout or a dramatic hammer that decides a match?

“I think that for curling, to grow the sport, publicity is good,” said Canadian Emma Miskew, a three-time world champion whose own skip — Rachel Homan — was accused of the same “double touch” violation as Kennedy. “But in this situation, it just was a little blown up. It was a little too far.”

On that, Mishew is right. The conversation grew so intense online that Nolan Thiessen, CEO of Curling Canada, told The Associated Press there have been “disgusting” emails directed toward family members of the Canadian team.

“That’s where it’s going to stop, right? We keep it on the ice,” Thiessen said. “If you want to hate our teams, that’s your right as a sports fan.”

Thiessen, however, also recognizes the opportunity all this has provided. The pushback by self-appointed curling experts — many of whom likely didn’t know the hog line even existed until a few days ago — is tough to stomach. At the same time, curling has never been such a prominent part of the Olympic conversation.

“It’s both sides of it, right?” he said. “You get the people reaching out that are really upset about the rules infraction. And then you get the people that are reaching out about the drama between the two teams.”

That second part is not nothing. There are many paths to fandom. Almost all of them have the same starting point: exposure. This time, the exposure seems to be wrapped up in what could best be described as Olympic catnip.

The fact that the teams at the Cortina Curling Center compete under the flag of the country they represent means there are built-in allegiances. Throw in a sport whose nuances are largely a mystery, mic up the athletes to provide an intimate glimpse, put national pride on the line in the form of Olympic medals and you’ve got all the ingredients necessary to get a foot in the door.

“I think that there’s value in creating people watching curling, people getting interested in curling,” said Kristian Heldin Lindstrom, manager of Sweden’s women’s Olympic team. “And if you start watching it, maybe you’re going to keep watching it because it is a very interesting sport, there is a lot of complexity to it.”

Eyeing the future

Nic Sulsky is kind of banking on it. The CEO of The Curling Group acquired the rights to the Grand Slam of Curling in 2024 in hopes of creating a sustainable professional league.

The organization pointed to the spring of 2026 as a potential launch date from the second it took over the Grand Slam. The Rock League will kick off with a one-week event in Toronto in April, when six teams of 10 curlers (five men and five women) will face off.

The calculus was easy. Sulsky, a Montreal native whose background is in gambling ventures, knew there would be a spike in interest in curling once the Olympics began, just like there always is.

The sport’s ubiquity during the Games — the competition actually began two days before the opening ceremony and will wrap up with the women’s gold-medal match just hours before the closing ceremony starts — combined with its relatability as one of the few Winter Olympic disciplines where danger isn’t imminent, makes it a fun hang.

Sulsky felt April would be a chance to strike while the rock is hot. He just didn’t envision it being quite this hot or being talked about in quite this way.

 

“Would we have all preferred if the world fell in love with curling because of an incredible curling shot? Sure,” Sulsky told The AP. “But what do fans love more than anything else? They love personality, they love stars.”

And there was a realness in the exchange between Ericksson and Kennedy that wouldn’t have been out of place on a soccer pitch or a hockey rink.

“All this has done is just shine a light on how competitive, how emotional and how interesting these athletes are,” he said.

The reality is, Ericksson and Kennedy’s spat isn’t that uncommon, particularly when it comes to double-touching.

The rule that bars those curling the stone from touching it with their fingers once they release it can be difficult to police. There’s typically an honors system involved. There is no official video replay available to sort it out, leaving it up to the officials or the competitors themselves. It can lead to messily authentic moments like the one that went viral on Saturday night.

Given the massive stir it has created, maybe Kennedy and Ericksson were on to something.

Asked if this means curling could one day borrow a page from professional wrestling and give competitors microphones where they can cut promos before and after matches to create storylines in hopes of keeping a foothold in the public consciousness, Paetz laughed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Who knows how it looks in five years? I think maybe it just stays the way it is right now.”

And that might be more than enough.