ST. JOHN’S – A now-infamous stone-touch — one that sparked curling’s biggest controversy in years at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games — has been explicitly banned in Canada for the coming competitive season.
Curling Canada has fully adopted the World Curling Federation rulebook, dropping its own set of rules and incorporating the international body’s changes for this year — which includes clear language forbidding players from touching the granite part of a curling stone during parts of their throw.
“Touching the granite at any time after the tee line at the delivery end is not allowed,” read the new World Curling Federation rulebook. Previously, the rules only specified: “The curling stone must be delivered using the handle of the stone.”
Granite touches took centre stage in Italy during the Olympics last February, following a heated argument between Canada’s Marc Kennedy and Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson during round-robin play.
Curling officials uncharacteristically stepped-up umpire enforcement of potential rule violations following the argument — a break from Curling’s self-policing traditions — only to backtrack a day later.
“I think it was good for the sport, because people didn’t really expect that from curlers,” said Greg Smith, a two-time Brier skip in St. John’s.
“All the controversy of it … went viral online.”
He and teammate Ben Stringer have both played against Kennedy, and don’t believe a poke of the stone after it’s release — as Kennedy was alleged to have done in Cortina — would be beneficial to the thrower.
“You got to push so hard to do anything,” said Stringer, who himself has represented Newfoundland and Labrador three times at the Brier. “Probably, you hurt your finger more than you would affect a rock, really.”
The World Curling Federation didn’t respond to questions from CTV News about why the body decided to incorporate a new rule.
Curling Canada decided to adopt the entirety of the World Curling Federation rulebook this fall in order to better align the rules throughout competitive events.
Newfoundland-based curler Brooke Godsland, who represented the province at the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, said that the move makes sense.
“A lot of players at a very high level have been doing this so competitively for so long. It’s their day job,” she said. “This is what they’re getting paid to do. Having a strict set of rules is way more beneficial than having it more loose.”
But Godsland agreed with Stringer and Smith that the poke was probably not very effective.
“Everyone was kind of confused. I mean, nobody’s ever talked about it before, and nobody’s seen it before,” she said. “People do things differently. But I don’t know, I just don’t think it really did much.”
“It was a little blown out of proportion for what it was,” Stringer added.
However, Godsland said it was “really cool” to see people pay attention to the sport.
Curling Canada’s new rules come into effect immediately and will be in place for the country’s national competitions in February — the Scotties in Charlottetown and the Brier in Saskatoon.
