The curling ice at the Winter Olympics is often full of shouting—but not like this. Last Friday, in a match that Canada won 8-6, a verbal altercation broke out between the third throwers from each team. Near the end of the match, after a debate over minor rules reached its crescendo, Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson passive-aggressively accused Canadian vice-skip Marc Kennedy of cheating. Kennedy promptly declared that he “didn’t give a shit,” twice telling Eriksson to “fuck off.”
Within hours, the dustup had been covered by nearly every major news outlet and had blown up on social media, inspiring scores of people to suddenly become experts on a 500-year-old Scottish sport. By the end of the weekend, they all had a…