The Canadian Olympic men’s curling team isn’t done talking smack with Sweden.
Canada’s Marc Kennedy went viral for his swear-filled exchange with Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson after he was accused of cheating.
Canada went on to win the match before capturing gold one week later.
Now home from the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, Canadian lead Ben Hebert had more to say. In an interview with Sportsnet 960 in Calgary, Hebert didn’t mince words, calling Eriksson a “weasel” and a “prick.”
“Oskar Eriksson, as much as he’s a weasel, he’s an unreal player,” Hebert told hosts George Rusic and Matt Rose. “It’s a good thing that he’s an awesome player, because he’s a complete prick and nobody really likes him.”
The Swedes entered their match versus Canada with a 0-3 record, something that Hebert believes led to “sour grapes.”
Canada was golden in Olympic men’s curling (Eric Bolte/Imagn Images)
“These antics aren’t new to us with Oskar, so we usually just brush it off. Everybody knows that in the curling circles.”
Hebert also said that what Kennedy did was perfectly fine in Canada, but a new rule brought in by the World Curling Federation earlier this year made things different at the Olympics.
“In Canada, you can throw the rock however you want, touch any part of the rock, no big deal,” Hebert explained. “[Oskar] found this loophole, sounds like he pre-planned it to fire us up and get under our skin.”
Though Hebert is clearly still emotional talking about the incident at hand, he did give Sweden props, saying that they “whooped us” in past years. That has since changed, however.
“They’ve been on a serious two-to-three-year decline here. I think that’s probably tough for them… I think they were just kind of reeling and understanding that they had no chance, just stir some sh*t. The only way the Swedish media was going to follow them was if they did something like that.”
Canada beat Norway in the semi-final before knocking off Great Britain for gold (Candice Ward/COC)
At the end of the day, Canada had the last laugh, something Hebert believes was justice well served.
“Here’s one way to deal with a bully: you punch them in the mouth. That’s what we did. We got first place, sat on the podium with a gold, and he got dead last.
“Is dead last in the Olympics good? Because that’s what they got. And we are feeling real good about that.”
You might also like:Frank Seravalli was pissed during fiery debate on Vancouver sports radio