What Have the Olympics Done for Curling?

The Olympic Winter Games are almost over. To be honest, it feels like they’ve been going on for a very long time.

The women’s gold medal final will end – for curling fans – an inevitable four-year cycle of dramatic team changes, championships and Olympic build-up. We now call it a quadrennial, to highlight the five rings becoming the ultimate prize for curlers. It is the one curling tournament that the world watches.

The fact is that curling is a weird, quirky game. As a lifelong curler, I occasionally forget that most of the world views this sport as silly novelty, and it occupies zero percent of most people’s brain space. Sure, the Brier and Scotties get love from TSN and the Canadian sports media, but for the most part curling is obscure, known only to curlers. It is the “inside joke” of sports.

I can say this because this quirky, weird and obscure sport has laid claim to a large part of my life and my soul. It has provided me community, and enjoyment, and tons of pleasure. I love the game.

For me, the last few weeks have felt almost weird. All of a sudden, everybody seemed to care about my sport. People at work, old friends, pretty much any non-curler who knows me was asking me about this game.

This was cool, but I also know this will be fleeting. While the Olympics shine a brilliant spotlight on the game for three weeks, I know that the world will move on as of Monday, and curling will be forgotten.

So what have the Olympics done for the game? We are 28 years into the re-inclusion of the sport as an official Winter Olympic medal event. Has it really grown the game? Has it taken the sport to the next level?

I grew up curling in the 1980s and 1990s. We had what felt like twice as many curling clubs. There were tournaments that had hundreds of teams signing up. The Brier was held in the jam-packed Calgary Saddledome. 

Curling in Canada was definitely bigger before the sport’s inclusion in the Games of 1998. It has only gotten smaller since.

Then there is the growth of international curling. World Curling now trumpets 84 countries that have a curling federation or association. Yes, there are now Olympic curling teams from multiple countries, and we have international competitions featuring teams from all kinds of nations that will never build one sheet of curling ice. 

Most of these national teams from small countries are actually made up of Canadian or European curlers with citizenship from elsewhere. 

How did that grow the game?

There is definitely more money being pumped into the sport at an international level. There are Olympic programs in multiple countries funded by governments with the sole focus of winning medals. While they may be successful at this task, have they really grown the game in their respective countries?

Then there is the attention that benefits curling from the spotlight that is the Olympics. The world watches curling for a fortnight. Non-curlers will suddenly become experts. Every bro with a sports podcast will predictably claim that they could take up curling now and make it to the next Olympics (spoiler: not a chance in hell). Millions will watch and cheer. 

But then it ends, and curling gets filed back in most people’s minds on the same shelf as luge, cross-country-skiing or moguls… sports that most people only care about once every four years.

Back in 2008, Wayne Middaugh – in a spicy TSN Off The Record appearance – declared “the Olympics have ruined curling.” 

Maybe, just maybe, we should stop trying to make the Olympics out to be the showcase that will grow our sport, and realize that it actually is just another damn bonspiel.

Yes, I realize I hit a nerve in my column last week.

After reading a handful of the thousands of reply comments (mostly from angry Swedish curling fans) I still stand by what I wrote. I do not condone Marc Kennedy swearing, but implying that he is a cheater is just plain ridiculous.

Of course if you think the other team is doing something wrong, you can talk to the officials. It is their job to watch. But in my million or so years of competitive curling, I have never seen a rock pulled by an official for touching the back of the granite.

And if you believe that Kennedy (or Rachel Homan, or Bobby Lammie) were actually trying to improve their shot – or cheat – by poking at the back of their rocks, you do not understand physics nor curling.

But none of this is the point.

The point is this issue focused the attention of the world on a trivial rule violation, instead of the beauty of the game. As a competitive curler, it made me ashamed. 

I think the Swedish team regret how it all turned out. I think they mostly regret the hogline video and then posting bullshit.

The incident spiralled way out of control, and made the officials and the sport look stupid. What was the point of it all?

I would have hoped the lasting memory of the 2026 Games will be Bruce Mouat’s insane runback triple, along with the moving story Devin Heroux wrote about Bruce coming out. 

Or Homan coming back from a 1-3 start to make the semis, thanks to an insane triple against Sweden. 

Or the Norwegian men’s team wearing wild pants to honour a fallen friend and mentor, and then qualifying for the playoffs before going out with a spin-o-rama shot for the crowd. 

Or USA fifth Rich Ruohonen bravely speaking his mind when asked about the politics going on in his home state. 

Or Curling Baby.

There are so many great stories that could elevate our sport, and highlight the culture of inclusion and depth of the game.

But the casual sports fan does not do nuance. With the whole world watching, we turned curling into pro wrestling, where you hit your opponent with a chair when the referee’s back is turned. 

Anybody who thinks this attention was good for the game is naïve.