The Ben Mulroney Show - Possible cheating. Scandal. Trash-talk. No, it’s not Reality TV - it's the Olympics

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

LIVE from Milan, Global News National Reporter Mike Armstrong, joins the show to discuss the highs and lows of the 2026 Winter Olympics. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. All right, let me just say that if you're looking for sports content, look elsewhere. This is not that. We are not going to delve into the ins and outs of the minutia of sport, but we do talk about it on this show as you might around the water cooler, if that's the thing people still do around the office. We have so few people in this office. There are days.

Actually, there used to be days. Back when I worked a different shift, there were days where I saw almost no one in this giant building that is chorus key. But if you are somebody who likes to talk about the general themes of what's going on at the Olympics, this is the spot, the Ben Mulrudey show. I promised you that audio of Jay Dearborn

and Mike Evelyn O'Higgins of our Bob Sledding team, who did a post-run interview, and just listen and enjoy. Yeah, I mean, we talked to coach after the first period there. We were really thinking about just getting the puck in deep, dump a chase, you know, with the classics. I've done a lot of hockey interviews, and I've heard a lot of things, but I didn't think they'd actually cross here with Bob's and I love it.

I absolutely love it. Mike, I talked to you earlier on this week, and, you know, this is kind of a sport where you've got to be patient when you're in Bob's, because you've got all the other sliding sports. You were itching and got going. How good does it feel to finally get down there? Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're just trying to stick to the process.

I'm here to bang bodies, get pucks deep, get in front of the net, you know, maybe get in the goalie's eyes. You know, you've got a role to play, and I'm here to play my role. I mean, this is what, listen, with the cheating stuff, this is the cleansing tonic that we need. These guys are having fun. They're having fun. And sports supposed to be fun.

So thank you for that. Jay Dearborn and Mike Evelyn O. Higgins. And now I'm going to thank him in advance. Mike Armstrong, Global News National Reporter, who is coming here. I mean, he's live in Milan, Cortina, for a broad conversation about the Olympics. Mike, welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for putting me in, coach. Those guys are great. I'm loving it. Okay, let's talk about Mikhail Kingsbury, who won Canada's first gold medal. There were some who were wondering whether we were going to win any golds at all. And now we've got three.

Sometimes you've just got to get that. first one, right? That's it. Well, it's interesting because Niciel said that he went to bed on Saturday night. So the night before this big competition, and he had heard about the curse. People were talking about it. And he said, he wanted to be the person to break it. And he wanted to be the person to sort of set the momentum. And he's done that. He really did do that. It's a great story, too. And one of the things I was looking for after he won was his son. You don't want to talk about sports. Let's talk family for a second. His son, Henrik, was born in 2022 and it just changed his life.

It changes all of our lives. I'm sure you'll agree. Oh, yeah. But the way it changed the way he competes, actually. He said that previously in his career, he would put him in the hill and he'd be training or he'd be competing and he'd go back to his hotel room and he would just think and think and think and analyze and think. He just couldn't let it go.

He said, now he competes or he trains. He goes back to his hotel room. His wife hands on the baby says, here, change the diaper. And he goes, thank you. and he just, he loves being a dad. He can switch it off. Yeah, exactly. Great.

Listen, I've, I've had debates about, you know, people who choose not to have kids. And I'm of the opinion, do whatever you want. Live your life however you want. I think we as a society are dealing with the ramifications of way too many people, having way too few children. But that's a separate conversation. Individuals that can do what they want. However, individuals who are so sure of themselves that they made the right decision,

those are the people that I have to try. chuckle at because I have been that person with no kids and I'm also somebody with kids. So I know both sides of the fence. So when somebody is debating me on that, I view them as somebody who did not come prepared because you cannot possibly know how fulfilling it is to have a kid. You cannot possibly know what it would do to your life unless you have them and to sit there with such confidence in your position is very rich. One of the athletes that's coming up in the next couple of days is Cassie Sharp and she's a great story. She's got a couple of medals already. She's accomplished everything she could. She's won

X games and a gold medal in the Olympics and a silver medal in the Olympic. She's got the resume. It's full. A few years ago, she and her husband decided to have a baby and she was retiring. And she just tuned on and she turned the TV on one day to the X games. She had her little baby with her. And she looked at the athletes competing and she went, oh, I'm not done. She's back here at the Olympics. And she said, you know what? You know what? You know, she had a really serious injury a few years before that. She came back from that injury

to go all the way back to the Olympics and so she sort of took the lessons that she learned how she came back from that injury and she's employed them here and she's back at the Olympics again. What do you make of the trash talking between Matthew Kachuk and I guess his nemesis

in the NHL when they're lacing up in the NHL and bring it to the Olympics? Yeah, I don't know. It's a way guys play, right? Brad Marchant, who hasn't been playing actually for Team Canada for a couple of games, he plays that game and Matthew Kachuk is now his teammate. So you've probably got two of the best trash talkers in the league right there playing together.

It's kind of painful. I will say that I saw a German interview with Dry Seidel where he said it doesn't bother him. It just sort of, you know, like water off a duck's back. I don't know what impact it has. always wonder. I just, I just, I got a wonder, you know, always the bridesmaid, never the bride. That, that, that's probably fair and good in the, in the, in the, in the Limp, in the NHL, but if you're playing for Team USA and you're, and you have to go through Canada to win the gold, I got to wonder whether that's something smart. That could fire up the Canadians and wanting to make sure that

Team USA is the bridesmaid yet again. a lot of people in our country are hoping they're the bridesmaids again that's for sure okay we got to spend some time talking about this odd cheating scandal in uh for for canada both the men's and women's team have both been credibly accused of it uh because we can see it with our eyes uh cheating in in curling now from what i understand so i and i explained it off the top of the show the issue at issue is the double touch right letting go of the of the rock at the line and then either

touching it again or touching the base of it in both cases it's verboten but from what I understand because it's like a 40 pound rock touching it a second time is going to do nothing

so why do it? You know what I think some of the people have actually, if you keep watching even in other games involving other countries they sort of tap the rock a bit on their way down

they make the release and then their hand comes down and they touch the rock I guess that's supposed to mean it's burnt if they touch the granite. The word cheating seems maybe like almost an exaggerated way of describing what happens. Is it laziness then? Is it like a bad habit due to laziness? I can't imagine an Olympic athlete could be accused of being lazy, having lazy habits.

It's almost like a tick. It's almost like the rock of 42 pounds moving away from you and you touch it with the back of your finger. I'm not sure that's really cheating. This isn't like having your blade. of your hockey stick with too much of a curve or something like that where you're intentionally going up. I don't know. It just felt strange. That said, it's going to change the game. It's hard to say exactly how going forward. There are some people that say maybe they're going to need some sort of instant replay. The Swedish team says they're worried that that's going to slow the

game down. The U.S. team has said, you know, they support replay, but you can't imagine. It's supposed to be a gentleman's sport, you know, you're supposed to police yourself. It's not like all the rinks in Canada are going to put in instant replay. No, but listen, if it's a rule that you cannot touch it once you've let go and you cannot touch it once it's past the line,

then that's the rule. And if you do anything to circumvent the rule or to run afoul of the rule, I mean, there's a word for that. And it's not a good one. You've broken the rule. And in sport, rule breakers are called cheaters. I'm not saying it's right.

I'm not saying it's wrong. But it's kind of black and white, no? I think the word cheat means there's a bit of intention behind it. And I think the Canadian player's back of his finger glanced off the back of the stone. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, no, listen, I agree with you. It's a tough way.

But if it's a tick, then they should have worked that tick out. knowing that the cameras are all over them. You know what I mean? Like, this is a problem of our own doing and simply saying everybody does it and it's not going to alter anything. So just chill out is not right. And if you've got a problem with the rules,

then petition have the rules changed. But to simply get caught and say it's not a big deal is not a good look for the country. Can we look at how they were caught for a moment then? Okay. So there's no camera set up on the hog line. if you watch the broadcast. So it's not like there's a camera right there that can...

So when the player was accused, I guess it was Sweden, when the game player was accused on the weekend of touching, double touching, what the player that complained said was, I'll show you video later, which is an interesting thing because there are no cameras on the line. Okay. But after the match, what came out? Someone on Twitter has a camera set up on the hog line.

So that's where that came out. I'm not saying they necessarily did, but some people have pointed at the team that accused Canada and said, oh, they knew it was coming, they had a camera on the line, and they let that video get out. Okay, well, listen, maybe there's more, maybe AI is to blame. Hey, I want to thank you so much, Mike Armstrong. I know it's late there.

We really appreciate you joining us. Let's do it again.