I am a four-year club curler in a Thursday-night beer league and multiple-time D-bracket champion of local bonspiels. In layman’s terms: I understand the sport and its culture but am certainly not an expert on how the game is played at the level where the handles have sensors. However, from watching the tape and reading analysis by other curlers, it seems clear Kennedy violated the rules by touching the back of the rock after the nose had touched the hog line. However, it’s also likely that this had no impact on the result—the violation involves a fraction of an inch, and the hog line is 93 feet from the center of the target on the other side. Light double-tapping of the rock before the hog line also seems to be fairly common, as there are now video edits purporting to show other teams, including Sweden, doing the same thing.