If you’ve been paying attention to the 2026 Olympic curling in Milano/Cortina Italy, or really the internet in general, you’ve probably heard of “Boopgate” (or at least seen the curling memes).
In the Sweden vs Canada Men’s 4s round robin game, Oskar Eriksson of team Sweden accused Marc Kennedy of team Canada of multiple illegal touches of the stone after the hog line.
This caused a heated exchange between the two across the ice:
“Apparently it’s OK touching the rock after the hog line I don’t know. Or touching the rock” Oskar Eriksson said as he was sliding into position for Sweden’s next rock.
“Who’s doing it?” retorted Marc Kennedy
“You don’t know it?”
“WHO?” snapped Kennedy
“It’s a couple. It’s a couple” replied Oskar.
“WHO?” Kennedy had begun the transformation into a rare Canadian Booping Owl.
Oskar points across the ice at Kennedy.
“I haven’t done it once. You can fuck off.” Kennedy replied.
“You haven’t done it once?” Oskar asked.
“I haven’t done it once. Don’t chirp me”
“Ok. I’ll show you a video after the game”
“How about you walking around on my peel on the last end, dancing around the house here?” Kennedy asked, dancing around the house, “Come on Oskar, just fuck off”
“You want me to show you the video?” Oskar asked.
“I don’t give a shit.”
This was the result of Swedish Skip Niklas Edin calling over an official to call out the touching and try to get them to step in and do something about it.
Curling is very much a “self-policing” sport, even at the high levels like Canada’s Brier Bonspiel and the Olympics. Players are expected to abide by the rules themselves and call out their own infractions to the other players. Often times players will notice something happening like burning a rock and if the person who burned it doesn’t chime in that they did, it’s unsportsmanlike and the other players should call it out.
World Curling has reiterated that they won’t use video review and basically teams need to “deal with it themselves”.
The only reason we have a clear video of Kennedy actually touching the granite is because a journalist for the Swedish Media moved themselves into position along the hog line and got this pretty damning evidence:
The Spirit of Curling
While Kennedy’s actions didn’t really follow the spirit of curling, he could still pick up one of these really cute Spirit of Curling tees from Stone & Broom.
Use code BOOPGATE for 10% off the Spirit of Curling tee through the end of the 2026 Olympics (Feb 22nd, 2026).
What do Curling Rules say about “Double Touching”?
The relevant World Curling Rules are worded as follows (as of writing):
R9.A: Between the tee line at the delivery end and the hog line at the playing end:
I. If a moving stone is touched, or is caused to be touched, by the team to which it belongs, or by their equipment, the touched stone is removed from play immediately by that team. A double touch by the person delivering the stone, prior to the hog line at the delivering end, is not considered a violation.
R5.E: A stone must be clearly released from the hand before it reaches the hog line at the delivery end. If the player fails to do so, the stone is immediately removed from play by the delivering team.
and:
R5.D: The curling stone must be delivered using the handle of the stone.
Based on that and World Curling’s definition of “the handle”:
Handle – The part of a curling stone that a player grips in order to deliver.
Kennedy’s stone should’ve been stopped by Canada before it reached the playing end’s hog line and removed from play, both because he touched the rock after it started crossing the hogline and for touching a part of the stone that isn’t the handle.
What happened after “Boopgate”?
Kennedy’s outburst landed himself an inappropriate behavior warning from World Curling, as well as becoming the main meme for the online curling world the last couple days.
Kennedy didn’t apologize to Erikson instead telling reporters:
“I probably could have handled it better. But we’re human out there and there’s a lot of emotions. I’m not going to apologize for defending my teammates and standing up for myself,”
It seems like there has been increased scrutiny at the hogline afterwards with several other stones being pulled for similar reasons, including Canada’s own Rachel Homan.
World Curling’s Response
World Curling released a notice basically just re-iterating the rules stated above.
They also claimed that when the hog-line violations were brought to the attention of the on-ice official they moved from their position at the end of the sheet to the delivering hog line for a minimum of three ends. During the three subsequent monitored ends, the official for the SWE-CAN Men’s Curling game reported no further hog-line violations.
For some reason World Curling can’t just have hog line judges all the time, which you’d think they should for an event as huge as the Olympics.
Heat on the ice heated up the internet
The public’s response has been pretty mixed. Lots of discussions on Reddit and online about whether or not he even touched the stone, whether or not the touching he did was even illegal in the eyes of the curling rules, and even down to the physics of whether that tiny little touch even did anything to the outcome of the stone.
Lots of name calling. Lots of accusations of people not knowing what the hell they’re talking about. Nobody really changing their mind on anything. Ya know? Normal internet drama.
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