There are two arenas in life where ordinary, respectable people are lured down a dark path, throwing the rules out the window and hoping no one will notice: the curling rink and the tax return.
The Canadian men’s curling team showed us this at the 2026 Olympics, when a player was accused of illegally touching a stone mid-play. It was a transgression so subtle it required video review to confirm, and yet apparently is something that “happens all the time”… the home office deduction of a sport otherwise known for its honesty and sportsmanship. (“Yes, my home office equals the entire square footage of my apartment.”)
What follows is a comparison of two of history’s great cheating traditions: one played in ugly pants and Teflon-bottomed shoes, one played in reading glasses in front of a pile of receipts. The strategies are more similar than you’d think.
- The double touch vs. the double deduction: In curling, touching a stone twice is illegal. In the tax world, this is the equivalent of divorced parents both claiming their child as a dependent.
- The spirit of curling versus the letter of curling: The Canadian player reportedly said he didn’t intentionally touch the stone; the Swedish team challenged — how could you touch 42 pounds of freezing granite and not feel it? Sounds like, “Well, it’s not my fault if I didn’t get a 1099 for that income” [leaves the income off the return].
- The sweep: In curling, teammates furiously sweep the ice to influence the stone’s path. When cheating on your taxes, you also sweep — frantically sweeping receipts into a shoebox and hoping the auditor doesn’t look too hard.
- The penalty: In curling, a “burnt” (i.e., illegally touched) stone is removed. In taxes, the IRS essentially does the same thing, except your deduction is the stone being removed.
When you cheat in curling, it happens on a world stage with cameras everywhere. Tax cheating happens on a laptop with Doritos crumbs stuck between the keys at 11p.m. in March, and yet somehow the IRS still finds out. The lesson from Canada’s curling scandal is timeless: Whether you’re on the ice or filing your return, the moment you think no one is watching is exactly when everyone is watching.
