Swearing, illicit filming & rule changes - what next in curling cheating row?

Accusations of cheating. Swear words being hurled across the ice. Counter-claims of a sting operation with illicit filming.

Then changes to how games are officiated. Protests from teams. Another alteration to the protocols.

It's been quite the few days in the Cortina Curling Stadium during a Winter Olympics that has delivered intrigue and excitement both on and off the field of play.

The drama in the curling started on Friday.

Canada's Marc Kennedy became involved in a heated verbal exchange with Swedish opponent Oskar Eriksson towards the end of his side's 8-6 win.

The Swedes believed Kennedy was repeatedly double-touching some of his stones - releasing the handle at the appropriate time but then giving the stone another little prod with his finger to correct its course. Not allowed.

But the cards were signed by both teams at the end, meaning the result would stand in a sport that is proudly self-governed by the players.

World Curling later confirmed that "decisions made during a game are final" and that they do not use video replays "to re-umpire" decisions.

The only sanction given was to Kennedy for swearing.

Intriguingly, Eriksson had told his opponent during the row that "I'll show you the video after" and, sure enough, footage found its way into circulation post-match.

Kennedy was bang to rights. But where had the video come from?

The word from Canada was that it was pre-meditated. A set-up. That the Swedes had deployed someone to try to catch them out in a game that is founded in trust and respect.

Then the story took another turn when the Canadians returned to the ice on Saturday. Controversy flared around Kennedy again, with Switzerland reporting him to the umpire for the same offence in their 9-5 win.

Again, no action was taken against the 44-year-old veteran of four Olympics.

At that stage, World Curling needed to act. They announced they would deploy extra officials for the remainder of the Games to check for double-touching.

Canadian women's skip Rachel Holman was pinged for a double touch. Team GB's Bobby Lammie fell victim too.

Both incidents were a case of a lingering finger falling on to the granite after the handle was released, rather than a deliberate touch, so no suggestion of devious intent. Furthermore, the monitoring of it seemed sporadic.

The teams were up in arms and complained. World Curling relented. The protocol was changed on Sunday. Teams could now request to have the stone delivery monitored if they had suspicions, and for a minimum of three ends.

In reality, that was also haphazardly executed.

So what does curling do about this? After all, this is a sport in which they determine which stone is nearest the target by using what is effectively a big compass.

One nod to progress is electric sensors to gauge if stones have been released before the hog line but could they drag themselves further into the modern era and use video technology?

Team GB lead Hammy McMillan thinks so.

"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]," the Scot said.

"I think that would be quite cool, it would maybe make curling a bit more modernised. I think video review could be the next thing, with teams getting challenges."