Accusations that Canadian curler Marc Kennedy illegally touched a stone during a tense 2026 Winter Olympics match against Sweden are igniting both controversy and a flood of curling memes.
While officials ruled in Canada’s favor and denied any cheating occurred, photos and video of the alleged "stone poke" proliferated across the internet, turning the moment into one of the most meme-ified Olympic scandals of the Games.
What happened at the Sweden-Canada curling match?
On Feb. 13, 2026, Canada and Sweden faced off on the ice for the Winter Olympics men's curling event. In the middle of the close match, Sweden's Oskar Eriksson accused Kennedy of touching the granite part of the curling stone rather than the handle, which is against the rules.
They further accused him of "double-touching," which happens when a player makes contact with the stone after it passes the hog line. The Swedish team maintains that the Canadian player cheated by touching the granite after the stone crossed the hog line, which wouldn't set off the sensor in the handle designed to detect double-touching.
Kennedy responded angrily to Eriksson's accusation, using some forbidden language in the process.
"I haven't done it once," he said. "You can f*ck off."
Umpires upheld their ruling that Canada's team had not double-touched or touched the wrong part of the stone, but issued a verbal warning to Kennedy for swearing.
"I can’t think of once in my entire career where I’ve done something to gain a competitive advantage by cheating," said Kennedy after the game. "So when you get called out, my instinct was to be a little bit of a bulldog."
Canada won the match 8-6.
Canada curling controversy births stone poke memes
Curling fans honed in on the granite-touching violation as images and footage of Kennedy appearing to make contact with the stone spread online. The angle makes it difficult to determine if he truly touched it, but Sweden's supporters and general curling rules hounds are convinced of his guilt.
"Sweden knew Canada's Marc Kennedy was a notorious cheater," insisted Canadian X user @bcbluecon. "So they set up a camera at the 'hog line' to record it."
"And caught him doing it at the Olympics."
After the umpires refused to change the initial ruling that helped Canada secure their win, those who believe cheating took place could only express their rage in meme form. Kennedy's now on social media touching all kinds of things, while pop culture figures—up to and including God himself—are poking stones.
The memes went on to overlap with the fervor over men's ice dancing and figure skating performances on Friday the 13th, which included a stunning number of falls. Perhaps Marc Kennedy was there in spirit, poking skates.
Even those who have no interest in curling got caught up in the memes as the controversy reached a fever pitch.
2026 Canadian curling memes:
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![Student in a high school with his right arm cocked back, ready to throw a punch. Tweet text overlay reads, "“you’re gonna get in trouble for that” “okay” [punch] legitimately one pf the coolest responses of all time."](https://lede-admin.dailydot.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/69/2026/02/punching-kid-meme-.jpg?resize=2880%2C1920)
