As controversy continues to swirl in the curling competition at the Winter Olympics over the double touching of stones, curlers say they are open to the prospect of introducing video replays to the sport.
On Friday, Sweden's men's team accused Canadian curlers of double touching stones, triggering a heated clash between players and a subsequent media frenzy.
In response, World Curling, the sport's governing body, said the remainder of the Olympic competition would have officials monitoring the hog line, the point where curlers must let go during delivery — however, they rolled that back on Sunday.
Since the officials were introduced on Saturday, Canada women's skip Rachel Homan and British men's curler Bobby Lammie have had stones removed due to double touches.
The governing body does not use video replays in games and instead uses electronic handles to detect hog line violations.
'MODERNIZED' CURLING
Lammie's teammate Hammy McMillan Jr. said the introduction of a system like Hawk-Eye, used in tennis and cricket, or soccer's Video Assistant Referee, could help.
"You bring in VAR or Hawk-Eye, and each team gets a challenge or two, so you've got to be dead certain that somebody did that (violation)," McMillan said. "I think that would be quite cool. It would maybe make curling a bit more modernized. I think video review could be the next thing, with teams getting challenges."
Luc Violette, part of the United States men's team, said it was hard for umpires standing on the sidelines to spot split-second violations.
"I think I'd like to see some more access to video. It's such a good tool for us and you can see it (violations) so much better," Violette said. "It's hard to officiate because we always say at the release, the hand's quicker than the eye. It really happens quite quickly. I think the officials are trying to do what they can with the rules in place right now, but I would like to see them be allowed to use video review. ... I definitely would love to see the sport embrace technology in as many ways as possible."
INSTANT REPLAY 'WOULD BE HUGE'
The United States' women's team second Tara Peterson said instant replay would also be useful for situations other than hog line violations.
"There's some curling spaces where it's wood on the walls," Peterson said. "We've had rocks bounce off and not know where they would go. You can't look at an instant replay. There's instances where an instant replay would be huge. If somebody accidentally hits a guard with their foot, where should that be?"
British women's skip Sophie Jackson was less enthusiastic about the idea of adding video replays, saying it could slow down play.
"We've spoken about in curling, for viewers, that we need to keep that pace up," she added. "So I think VAR probably isn't the way to go in my opinion. We've always been a game that tries to play by the rules and have that high sportsmanship level. Hopefully we can figure that back out with this rule."
WORLD CURLING BACKS OFF
In these Olympics, World Curling on Sunday rowed back on its decision to ramp up officiating after the initial cheating allegations. The sport's governing body said on Sunday officials would now only actively monitor for violations at the request of teams.
In response to the original dust-up between Canada and Sweden, World Curling initially said the remainder of the Olympic competition would have officials monitoring the hog line, the point where curlers must let go during delivery, but the officials changed that stance on Sunday after talks with National Olympic Committees.
Since the officials were set on the hog line on Saturday, just Homan and Lammie have had stones removed from play due to alleged violations.
The system the group is going to appears similar to the previous method of monitoring violations, in which umpires would be set at the hog line to observe deliveries for three ends if there was a complaint from either team.
'CAME OUT OF NOWHERE'
After Homan had a stone removed from play for double touching during a loss to Switzerland on Saturday, she called the decision "insane".
"I think the word cheating came out of nowhere. It has nothing to do with cheating. There's no chance that Canadians would ever intentionally cheat," Homan said on Monday.
"We don't do that. We're playing out there. We're fierce. You know, things happen. People burn rocks. People go over the hog line - that's just part of the sport. There's judges and reviews to make sure everything stays within how it's supposed to be played... We don't take lightly to feeling like someone thinks we're cheating out there."
Homan's teammate Emma Miskew said she felt her team was "brought into a situation that we had no part in."
On Saturday, World Curling rowed back on its decision to ramp up officiating after a meeting with representatives of the participating nations, saying officials would actively monitor for violations only at the request of teams.
Miskew said: "When the players started complaining, it puts them in a tough position, because they want to do their jobs and listen to the players that think that there's a problem out there... But I'm happy with how the discussion went and what the ruling came to."