Curling

EDMONTON - It took him eight long years, but Edmonton's Kevin Martin is heading back to the Olympics. Martin, who won a silver medal in his last appearance in 2002, defeated Glenn Howard 7-3 in the final of the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials to earn his ticket to Vancouver.

"To get another crack at it, it's a dream come true," said Martin, moments after running Howard out of rocks, setting off a standing ovation from the hometown crowd at Rexall Place.

"I couldn't be happier," said third John Morris. "Dreams do come true. We're going to go to Vancouver and we're going to do our best to bring home that gold."

The highly anticipated match between the country's top two teams was a stunning one-sided affair with Martin seemingly making everything and Howard uncharacteristically struggling.

The 11,778 in attendance enjoyed the outcome of seeing Martin, Morris, Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy come out on top, but were quiet for much of the afternoon until Howard finally ran out of rocks in the 10th end. As Martin's last shot removed the final Howard stone, the player known as the Old Bear gave a simple fist pump while his three teammates - all of whom are heading to the Games for the first time - jumped and yelped in excitement.

"It was a really good game," said the 43-year-old Martin. "Especially the first few ends - we put a lot of pressure on him."

After a first-end blank, it appeared Howard would score first when Morris, Martin's third, came heavy on a down-weight takeout and missed the intended rock. But his skip bailed him out with a perfect draw behind cover and when Howard failed to execute a double-raise takeout, Martin drew for two, taking the momentum with him.

Howard slipped again in the third end when his last-rock draw against two Martin counters seemed to float out. He managed to cut the Edmonton team to one but fell behind 3-0.
Howard finally got on the board in the fourth. With his last rock, he and third Richard Hart sized up a difficult raise takeout, unsure if the combination and angles of the rocks in question would spill in their favour and allow them to score three. They elected to try it but only managed to score one.

Martin counted two more in the fifth but Howard wasn't finished. After a blank in the sixth, he manufactured two in the seventh to close the gap to 5-3. He forced Martin to play a tough double for one in the eighth but in the ninth, any chance he had remaining fell away when his draw for one picked and ground to a halt, giving Martin a steal of one. That led to the 10th, where Martin finished things off.

Martin's play was superb throughout the week and Morris acknowledged that the skip was in a special place as the team won its last round-robin match against Howard and beat them again in the final.

"The last two games Kevin was just like the Brier last year," Morris said, "when he gets that look in his eye and he's not missing very many shots. When he's got that you just stand back and watch and enjoy."

Howard was obviously flustered at the outcome, unable to explain how the team that appeared so dominant in winning the semi-final against Jeff Stoughton on Saturday could come out so flat in the final.

"It's really tough," he admitted. "The wrong side of the inch. I can't believe how many shots came so close and just didn't happen today. Kudos to Kevin and the boys. They came out guns a-blazing and they deserved to win."

Martin's victory in the trials continued his string of beating Howard in big matches. He knocked off Howard twice in two thrilling matches in last year's Tim Hortons Brier and has a six-game winning streak in Brier play over the past four years.

Martin heads to Vancouver as the favourite to win gold and brings with him the expectations of a nation expecting him to win a medal. That pressure didn't seem to be a problem for the veteran curler.

"I want to medal too," he stated. "I can promise we'll try our best and that's all you can do."
Getting the Olympic berth was the end of a long process for the team, which was put together for the express purpose of reaching Vancouver. Martin selected the three youngsters and groomed them so they'd be ready for the ultimate test of the biggest game.

"It goes back to 31/2 years go," Martin said. "We wanted to get to as many finals as possible to try to, as a team, grow. We've taken some big wins and we've had some big losses and you always learn more from the losses. They held it together right to the end of the 10th end. There was no loss of focus."

It was the third trials final for Martin. In 1997, he was upset by Mike Harris but returned to defeat Kerry Burtnyk in 2001 to advance to the 2002 Games. There he missed a last-rock draw against Norway's Pal Trulsen and had to settle for a silver medal. Martin also skipped a Canadian team to fourth place at the 1992 Winter Olympics when curling was a demonstration sport.

Despite being one of the game's best players, Martin's record in international play is not great. In seven times representing Canada dating to the 1985 world junior championship, he's finished first just once. That came in 2008 when he won the world championship.

The victory completed an Alberta sweep of the trials. On Saturday, Calgary's Cheryl Bernard claimed the women's berth.

In addition to representing Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics, Martin gets additional spoils. His rink receives $180,000 over the next 21/2 years as Sport Canada A-carded athletes. They also get $50,000 from the net profit from the trials to help defray Olympic-related costs such as accommodation and ticket costs for family members. And both Martin and Howard collect $40,000 each from the Own the Podium 2010 fund, $30,000 of which was to be directed to training and competition expenses and $10,000 to sport science and sports medicine expenses.

Canada has won three medals in men's curling. Harris earned a silver medal in 1998 in Nagano, Martin won silver in 2002 in Salt Lake City and Brad Gushue took home gold from the 2006 Games in Turin.

Martin won't have long to prepare for the Olympics. The Canadian team plays its first game Feb. 16.
Special to The Globe and Mail