DON'T BRING GRANDMA'S O-CEDAR ANGLER TO THE BONSPIEL.

As surely as the East German judge will screw over the American figure skater and somebody will wipe out on the ski slopes, the coverage of curling during the Olympics will inspire wiseacres to find a slippery flat surface and something that will slide and parody the sport.  This year's wiseacres have used a Roomba or a teakettle or a baby in a basket.  The infant appeared to enjoy the experience.

Dig out your squidgy mop, a few pots and pans — or a robotic vacuum if you have one — and a pair of slippers.

It’s curling time!

Social media has been ablaze with people deploying common household wares to mimic what the world’s top curlers are doing at the Winter Olympics.

“Every four years, it blows up,” American curler Tara Peterson said. “Everyone’s like, ‘We want to do it,’ and then, yes, they get creative with things, so it’s awesome.”

Whether any of those social media attention hounds actually take up the sport I don't know.  It's not that hard to get involved, particularly if you live in a northern city.  The local curling club probably occupies a nondescript building in an industrial area of town, unless the town is Green Bay, where the nondescript building is literally in the shadow, at least during summer sunsets, of Lambeau Field.  And yes, there are some light industrial buildings as well as several sports bars you might have heard of nearby.

Curling has distinctive jargon, which means they'll refer to a tournament as a "bonspiel."  That sounds Teutonic but judging by this announcement from Milwaukee, the theming is Scottish.  Logical, the sport probably got started when somebody wondered if he could slide a chunk of granite across Loch Ness on a boring winter day with not much sunlight.  There's a full schedule of such tournaments, some for the club members and some open for other clubs, in Chicago.  Milwaukee's club claim to be the oldest club in continuous existence in the States, although not in continuous existence at one location, as is true of a model railroad club in Sudsville.

Grandma's O-Cedar Angler enters the conversation because in this year's Olympic coverage, I didn't see anything that looked like you could use it on the kitchen floor or to remove snow from switch points.  In previous years, I recall pictures of competitors holding something like that.  That got me wondering, were the competitors using association-sanctioned tools?

I didn't know the half of it.  "Sweeping equipment regulations update for the 2025–2026 season."

The updated regulations ensure that the foams used in the component style brushes have their minimum compression specification increased to a higher percentage allowing only the less-firm category of foams to be used. It was agreed that manufacturers of component style brushes would be given the opportunity to create foam matching those specifications or continue to use the existing foam they produce in that range.

World Curling would like to sincerely thank all our brush manufacturers for their patience and cooperation, but particularly those on-site in Morris for their collaboration in this challenging process. We would also like to thank the athletes who attended the sessions for their contributions to the productive discussions and assistance in the logistics of the testing.

This is not the end of the process with all involved recognising this is an interim step designed to move the sport through the Olympic season.

As our sport continues to modernise and professionalise at the elite level, our athletes and manufacturers continue to look for competitive and innovative approaches to improve performance on the ice. World Curling supports and encourages this advancement and accepts responsibility for ensuring these developments provide a positive impact on the sport.

Specifications and the approval and conformance processes established in 2016 following the Sweeping Summit are no longer sufficient as the sport has evolved. These specifications and process require continual re-evaluation to ensure the competitive integrity of the sport going forward.

New longer term testing processes that assess the impact of the complete brush head constructions is already underway with academics and materials experts to determine how this can be achieved.

Why all this process worship?

Despite sharing the same name, curling brooms and cleaning brooms are very different.

Curling brooms swap carbon fiber for the wooden or plastic rods typical of household brooms. Nylon pads replace straw bristles. Olympic-level models will set you back around $200-$250, Peterson said.

Broom lightness directly correlates to a curler’s control over a stone’s speed and trajectory. The lighter the broom, the quicker the sweep and the faster the melting of ice pebbles that make up a curling sheet.

In fact, sweeping technology has actually grown so advanced that certain models have been banned from competition. That’s what led to the “Broomgate” scandal, which rocked the curling world beginning in 2015.

Curlers began debuting high-tech brooms that gave sweepers so much control over the stone that the skill of the thrower failed to matter. Those kinds of brooms were then barred from competition by World Curling, which now maintains strict parameters on what kinds of brooms are allowed.

Figures.  Consider Alan Bond's winged keel or carbon fiber sails in match racing, and I lose track of what's permitted or not in golf clubs or tennis rackets and even the humble wooden Louisville Slugger can be tweaked for more of an advantage.  Major League Baseball wisely keeps aluminum bats out of the hands of its players, those guys have serious upper body strength.

Although the stakes are small in curling relative to major league baseball, the temptation to cheat remains.  "I love how the Canadians pretend to be squeaky clean — but a nation that will cheat at curling will cheat at anything."  Yes, there's been bad vibes between the Swedes and the Canadians.

The Canadians had made a perfect start to the tournament but the Swedes were evidently suspicious about the delivery of the stone by Canada vice-skip Marc Kennedy. Oskar Eriksson, his opposite number, suggested he had been guilty of “double touching”, an infraction that could either mean touching the handle following the delivery cut-off point known as the “hog line” or actually touching the base of the stone after releasing the handle. Both would be an infringement punished with removing the stone.

Sometimes it's a Fingerfehler, sometimes it's a subtle message to the sweepers that the stone is heavier?  I don't know.  But put me on record as opposed to video review of stone releases.