The Power of Olympic Curling

Curling, one of the world’s most ancient sports, shot the lights out as the 2026 Milano-Cortina competition kicked into gear on Wednesday evening.

A power outage in the opening end of play – followed by a second outage shortly after the lights had flickered back to life – delayed things before things settled back into gear.

Athletes and coaches held impromptu discussions. Korea’s Seon-yeong “Sunny” Kim and one of her Swedish opponents, Isabella Wrana, briefly played mock guitar using their carbon-fibre brushes, to the amusement of the crowd.

The 1956 Olympic Stadium in Cortina d’Ampezzo is old and beautiful, and it has undergone modern renovations for almost a year now. The Curling News’ Brian Pinelli has made multiple pilgrimages to the venue since last summer.

Curling romantics will declare the electrical woes were all about the sheer might of the Roaring Game – it’s a powerful sport, don’t you know.

No stones were in motion during either outage.

“You need to be ready for anything at an Olympic Games,” noted Canada’s CBC Olympics analyst Mike Harris.

The veteran broadcaster would know. At the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games, Harris’ opening match saw his team face off against hosts Japan. The small arena in Karuizawa was packed and the Japanese fans screeched, banged drums and blew an assortment of horns, making it difficult for the athletes – on both teams – to shout instructions to each other.

Other loud Olympic curling host sites through the years include Pinerolo in 2006 – particularly when Italy competed – and Vancouver 2010.

The crowd for session one (of many to come) was fairly quiet, but all eyes will be watching defending Olympic MD champions Italy take to the ice on Thursday morning against Korea.

The old barn, largely made of original wood, could become an echo chamber… which might prompt technical crews to further reinforce theelectrical gear.

Session one results saw Canada overwhelm Czechia 10-5 – the Czechs are now the youngest-ever curling athletes in Olympic history, with a total age of 40 – and Sweden crush Korea 10-3.

Meanwhile, Great Britain defeated Norway 8-6 and Switzerland hung on to stall a wild Estonian comeback by a 9-7 count.

Round robin play continues Thursday and runs through the morning of Feb. 9, with the semifinals scheduled for that evening.