Canada's Olympic curling feud with Sweden reignites: 'This poor fella can't handle last place'
It’s been over a month since Canada’s men’s curling team faced Sweden at the Olympics, yet tensions between the two remain high.
The two teams got into a heated argument that was picked up by TV crews during a round robin match. It all started with Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accusing Canadian Mark Kennedy of cheating, claiming he touched the rock past the hog line.
To no surprise, Kennedy and the entire Canadian team didn’t appreciate the accusations and made sure to rub it in a little after winning gold one week later. If you thought that would be the end of things, however, you’d be incorrect.
This past week, Swedish media outlet SVT shared a video of Eriksson demonstrating a double-touch, the same move he accused Kennedy of doing. The purpose of the video was to show how much a double-touch can change a shot’s trajectory.
“Evil unfortunately wins sometimes,” Eriksson says in the video, which was uploaded and translated by CBC. “I’m not taking anything away from the fact that they are good curlers, either. But I wish they had chosen to play the same way that all other teams try to.”
As you would expect, the Canadian men’s curling team wasn’t exactly thrilled with the video. In fact, team lead Ben Hebert took to social media to blast Eriksson.
“This poor fella can’t handle last place,” Hebert wrote. “It’s okay tho, when he has bigger things in his life he will have a better perspective. For now, he got dead last in the Olympics, but also got back into the slams with his points from the Worlds – so that’s exciting for them!”
This poor fella cant handle last place! It’s ok tho, when he has a bigger things in his life he will have better perspective. For now, he got dead last in the Olympics, but also got back into the slams with his points from the worlds – so that’s exciting for them! đŸ‡¨đŸ‡¦đŸ¥‡#DFL
— Ben Hebert (@BennyHeebz) April 6, 2026
Despite finishing dead last at the Olympics, Eriksson and his Swedish teammates picked up gold in the men’s world curling championship against a Canadian team skipped by Matt Dunstone this past Saturday.
Though it’s unusual to see this type of rivalry in curling, it should only help the sport going forward.