Canada's men's curling team defeated Britain 9-6 to claim gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, overcoming accusations of double-touching during the round-robin phase. The victory marks Canada's first men's curling gold since 2014. Skip Brad Jacobs hopes the podium celebration image lingers for those who labeled his team cheaters.
The gold medal match on February 21, 2026, saw Brad Jacobs' Canadian team—featuring vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, and alternate Tyler Tardi—prevail over Britain's Bruce Mouat squad. Canada trailed early but scored three in the ninth end to take an 8-6 lead, securing the win with one point in the tenth after Britain held the hammer.
The triumph followed a tumultuous tournament sparked by controversy on February 13, when Sweden's Oskar Eriksson accused Kennedy of double-touching a stone after release at the hog line, a violation under World Curling Rule R.5 that prohibits secondary contact during forward motion. Kennedy responded with expletives, reportedly telling Eriksson to "f*** off," earning a verbal warning for inappropriate language but no change to the 8-6 result. Footage from Swedish broadcaster SVT appeared to show Kennedy's finger lingering on the stone, which went viral.
Subsequent accusations included Switzerland claiming Canada double-touched in another match, and officials removing a British stone after Bobby Lammie was flagged for the infraction during Britain's 9-4 win over Germany. Canada also accused Sweden of improper filming of Kennedy's delivery, which Sweden denied, attributing it to public broadcasting.
World Curling responded by stationing umpires at the hog line for observations, concluding "no violations were recorded" after monitoring. They later reverted to self-policing at teams' request for three ends, citing challenges in constant surveillance. Jacobs called the new rule a "mess" and urged player involvement for future improvements.
"When some things went down this week and people were using some pretty outrageous words like ‘cheating’ associated now with our team, I’ll guarantee you that that only motivated us further," Jacobs said. Kennedy added, "I let my emotions get the best of me... We moved on, we moved forward and we did something amazing."
This marks Jacobs' second Olympic gold as skip, repeating the 2014 Sochi final win over Britain. Britain's men have not won gold since 1924. Earlier, Canada's women beat the United States 10-7 for bronze, led by skip Rachel Homan.
