Forget the luge and slalom for a moment. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, curling has muscled its way into the spotlight too – first with a “cheating” scandal, and now with something far more entertaining: a moonwalking ice technician who does a Michael Jackson impression while preparing the surface.
Meet 61-year-old Mark Callan, the Scottish ice technician at the Cortina Curling Stadium for every draw. Recent clips of Callan shuffling backwards with a backpack and hose while misting water into the air have taken off online, with viewers quickly dubbing him “Curling’s Michael Jackson”. Naturally, many of the viral posts are soundtracked with Jackson staples like Billie Jean and Bad, because internet.
Callan told AP he didn’t see fame coming – especially not for doing rink maintenance with a bit of flair. “It has taken me by surprise, because at the end of the day what seems to have gone viral is just me doing my job, so that’s an interesting turn of events,” he said.
The move he’s performing isn’t choreographed for applause; it’s part of a crucial curling process called pebbling. It involves spraying the ice with tiny droplets from the backpack he wears. The droplets freeze instantly and form little bumps – pebbles – that influence how stones travel, slowly wearing down over the course of a match. As the Winter Olympics website puts it, “It is fundamentally the most important part of curling – without it, it simply would not be possible.” It adds: “Competitors will sweep away at the ‘pebbles’, causing them to melt. In manipulating the ice, the stones glide across the sheet in the athlete’s desired direction.”
Callan says there’s more than one way to pebble, much like there’s more than one way to drive. “People drive cars in different ways, so people pebble in different ways,” he said. “But the most important thing when you’re pebbling is to find a style that suits you and allows for the even spreading of the pebbles, the little water droplets, on the ice.”
As chief ice technician, Callan also oversees a team monitoring humidity as well as ice and air temperature in the stadium – details that don’t go viral nearly as easily as a well-timed backwards glide. According to BBC Sport, his first experience with curling and pebbling came at an ice rink in Aberfoyle, Scotland, and he now lives in Copenhagen with his family.
Naturally, his mates have been enjoying the show too, even if it’s at his expense. “They’ve been like, ‘dearie me, what are you up to?’” Callan told the BBC. Still, he’s happy if it gives people a laugh. “They’re quite enjoying seeing some of the things out there and some of the comments as well… If, with all the doom and gloom in the world, it puts a smile on people’s face, then I’m fine with that.”
It’s the kind of cheerful publicity curling could use after a much frostier moment at the Milano Cortina Games, when cheating allegations collided with a very un-Olympic choice of words. The furore kicked off when Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accused Canada’s Marc Kennedy of touching the stone again after releasing it – against the rules. Kennedy, not in the mood for polite conversation, turned around and told him to “f— off”.
Soon after, another Canadian curler was accused of the same “double touch” in a separate match, with videos of both incidents quickly making the rounds online. Kennedy later apologised for the blow-up, saying he could have “handled myself better in the moment”, but argued he was defending his team, adding: “I also felt like I was standing up for my teammates and myself in a moment where, you know, it was kind of tough for us all game what Sweden was doing to us.”
He has denied cheating and even floated the idea that Sweden had been ready for the moment, saying: “They’ve come up with a plan to catch teams in the act.” In the meantime, if curling needs to thaw out its image, the quietly moonwalking ice technician might be just the warm blanket the sport is looking for.