Olympics Week One: Everybody Must Get Stoned

Olympic watchers hearing the term “illegal touching” can be excused for thinking that someone had broken into their broadcast of the Winter Olympics with news from the Epstein scandal. But No! Week One of Canada’s Games was ripped apart over a case of curlers illegally touching their stones.

Okay, maybe we should clarify. The men’s team, favourites for the gold, were accused by the Swedes of touching their shot rock with their hand after they’d released it. By rule that means the stone is “burned”, ie. taken off the ice that end. Team Canada’s Marc Kennedy vociferously denied the charge. There was some very salty language exchanged on the sheet and after the match in what is usually a gentleman’s game.

In the end videos did seem to support the claim by the Swedes—who were going to get rinsed anyway. But Kennedy wasn’t relenting afterward, except to say his “You can f--- off” language was uncalled-for. For some polite Canadians the outburst was a bit much. Although some saw the humour in the situation.

Sooner than you can say “double-raised take out” a second Canadian touching brouhaha emerged. This time it was Rachel Homan’s team being hit with the double-touching accusation by the Swiss in the first end! The charge, later verified by video, was received about as well as the men’s accusation. The controversy distracted Team Homan, who lost 8-7 in an extra end. 

Afterward Homan was bitter about the charge, denying she’d double touched. In a frosty interview with CBC she made it clear that Canada does not cheat. Or believes it does not cheat.

Had it been like the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where Canada was running the medal table the entire episode might have been brushed off. Pun intended. But the first week of the Cortina/ Milan Games was a death valley for Canada’s medal hopes. Until Mikael Kingsbury finally notched a gold in moguls on Sunday Canada had just eight medals, none of them gold. Here’s the comparison with Vancouver where 12 golds were eventually won.

Yes, the men’s hockey team can erase it all with a golden win over the U.S. But Homan’s favoured team now will be lucky for a medal. Jacobs ditto for a gold on the men’s side. World’s No. 1 short track sipped skater William Dandjinou went 0 for 2 in his singles events. And on it went. 

In a winter of discontent back home, typified by the tragic shooting in Tumbler Ridge, it’s been hard to find any good news. Canada’s political leaders— who are petrified of taking on the issue of dysphoria— literally joined hands at the memorial service for the dead in that B.C. town. While it was a proper gesture of solidarity the issue of trans needs more than one of Carney’s patented photo ops.

But in Canada’s frozen political landscape of 2026, where opposition to the Liberals’ Elbows Up gesturing is vilified by the UniParty media, there seems to be a stasis that’s at odds with the progress of populist reform elsewhere. Here’s what we wrote last September.

“The two sides of the West are beyond speaking terms. Hollywood doesn’t miss a day without demonizing MAGA. But with populist right-wing governments now running Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland, Poland and Hungary plus electoral breakthroughs in Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Britain, the populist wave in Europe is undeniable. 

Strangely immune from this looming trend is Canada’s ruling minority Liberals. Here’s Trudeau groomsman and cabinet place holder Sean Fraser. issuing the all-clear. “This isn’t the Wild West. It’s Canada.” All Canada needs apparently is more tender ministrations from Carney’s army.  Elbows Up, dudes.

As we noted in the 2025 spring election campaign, the Liberals won by ignoring the under-50 demographic while scaring the bejabbers out of white urban Boomers with the spectre of Orange Man Bad. Trump had the temerity of telling Trudeau/ Carney that, after their efforts, the nation’s stock is so low on multiple fronts internationally that it would be better off as a U.S. state. 

For Canadians still reading their 1980s copies of Macleans and watching Knowlton Nash this was a heresy. Led by vituperative cries of “fascism” from Andrew Coyne they’re still blaming POTUS 45/47 for the collapse of Canada under a tidal wave of immigration, money laundering and climate lunacy.  

Reports Sam Cooper: "Trump and US law enforcement agencies know exactly what's happening in Canada. So when the RCMP blocked the DEA from investigating fentanyl networks located here, it was just another nail in our coffin”  Others have, like Trump, noticed that the Canada of hockey and equalization payments is not the Canada of the present. Here’s Joe Rogan saying he’s now changed his mind about ever moving to Canada.

Some, like noted Canadian Malcolm Gladwell, are finally waking up to the pressure of his nation’s sanctimony. Gladwell is now recanting his support for trans athletes in women’s sports. He says he was cowed into saying so. In fact, you can be arrested for hate speech in Trudeau/ Carney Canada if you follow Gladwell’s example. He now lives in NYC. 

It would be understandable if no one had warned that their infatuation with Woke would catch up. But Canadian writer Mark Steyn foretold today’s insanity. “… the history of our time is that the mainstream is lunatic, which is why, in any recognizable sense, both North America and western Europe are on the brink of the abyss.”

An abyss that the West’s elites— particularly in Canada— refuse to acknowledge, preferring the dewey dawn of the Clinton or Obama presidencies. Writes Tristan Hooper: “The problem Canada faces is lies. Entrenched, institutionalized lies enforced through fear and intimidation. I'm seeing a lot of people struggling with whether they can keep their favourite lie but call out the others, but it doesn't work that way… Men can't become women. There is no Gazan genocide. There weren't 215 graves in Kamloops. We can't have a functional country again until the truth is allowed to return.”

Canada might start by admitting that its curlers touch their stones. And go from there.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2025 book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1069802700