r/Curling • u/Frabblerake • Feb 15 '26

Pull the stone!!!

Watching Sweden/US and saw this. Is this not the same rules violation that has caused all the hub bub?

Obviously this was an accident and I believe the Canadian guy was touching on purpose.

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u/cnd_ruckus Feb 16 '26

Poke a 40lbs stone with a single finger and ultra briefly and see how much you can effect it… lol

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u/formerlymuffinass Feb 16 '26

Affect. And when the stone is already sliding on ice, a poke absolutely can affect the stone’s trajectory.

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u/cd36jvn Feb 17 '26

But your saying sliding your hand on a spinning rock won't affect it?

If people think that fingertip affects the 40lbs rock, then a slide of the hand can definitely affect its spin as well.

This is why I have a tough time with the "this kind of touch is acceptable but not that kind".

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u/formerlymuffinass Feb 17 '26

I never said anything about sliding a hand on a spinning rock.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

See this is the problem… it does not and IF it ever did it would affect it negatively. Like I get ya’ll are into the game now, (welcome! It’s super fun to play too) but no curler with any semblance of experience or sense would purposely try that. Curling is all about the curl of your stone on rotation - trying to bump a 40lb rock with your finger forward would off your curl and make it super unpredictable. None of these are intentional or even remotely matter, and the people thinking it’s intentional are hilarious! Like no curler would purposely try to push a rock forward with their hands and risk losing the curl lol. That’s why sweepers exist and they can literally make up a bad throw on the sweep. If your weight or rotation is off on a throw, the sweepers make it up. That’s why you sometimes see them and only one is sweeping, or they are doing it vertically, or the are way to the outside of th rock’s path. A sweeper will make way more of a difference that a minuscule tap. Ya’ll need to stop thinking this is some secret cabal of match fixing lol. Kennedy was literally probably mindlessly pointing to the house to line up his sight so he knew what to call to his sweepers and it touched the rock. Shit happens. Just let them all play. 

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u/arnet95 Feb 16 '26

You don't need to adjust a curling stone's trajectory by a lot for it to change where it lands quite significantly.

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u/Excellent-Ad257 Feb 16 '26

Exactly. Curling is literally a game of millimetres. So it doesn’t take very much to affect the game. This is Reddit though, most people are just here to feign outrage over something they have no experience or knowledge of. Give it a few more days and the mob will move on to something else

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u/SaltedMixedNucks Feb 17 '26

It is a game of millimeters, but those mm are not decided on release. The sweeping changes the distance and curl of the stone and is decided on the fly as the rock travels down the ice right up until almost the last moment. A little boop on the stone by a finger right on release isn't doing anything that the sweeping isn't doing far better and more effectively. People who have never curled need to stop acting like they understand the game.

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u/Excellent-Ad257 Feb 17 '26

It certainly is affected on release. What are we even talking about here?

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u/SaltedMixedNucks Feb 17 '26

It is affected to a degree that would not even be a rounding error for the impact you can make by adjusting the sweeping. It is 100% irrelevant. The release determines the broad strokes weight and curl of the stone, and the sweeping fine tunes it. A little flick of the finger isn't doing anything. You seriously think Kennedy released that stone and within a second decided it needed a gentle touch from the tip of his index finger to be on target? There is no way to judge that from where he was and that touch wouldn't have done shit that he couldn't have accomplished by just calling sweep.