Martin draws for victory

VANCOUVER - The young whippersnappers on Thomas Ulsrud's Norwegian team
thought it was a splendid idea, to make Kevin Martin draw for the win on his
last shot in curling's first round of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
There's a history there, of course, with Martin and the Olympics and Norway
and all.
Edmonton's Martin has pretty much done it all on the pebbled ice, winning
four Briers, a world championship gold and brace of silvers, and a whack of
World Curling Tour crowns.
But there's that one fly in the ointment, from eight years ago in Salt Lake
City when the Edmonton curler let Olympic gold slip though his fingers.
To recap: Martin and Paal Trulsen had matched wits through much of the 2002
gold-medal game at the curling venue in Ogden, Utah.
With last shot in the 10th end, all Martin needed was a draw to the
four-foot.
He does that grocery shopping.
Only this time, Martin was heavy, sliding long by a couple of inches his
dream of gold.
Fast forward eight years and Martin is back in the Olympics, his third (he
curled in the '92 Albertville Games when it was a demonstration sport), with
his first game a rematch against his last Olympic opponent.
Only this time Norway's skipped by Ulsrud, although Trulsen is around as an
assistant coach.
Martin didn't miss on this day, drawing against three with his last shot to
score a 7-6 win in Canada's first game of the Vancouver Games on Tuesday
morning.
While Ulsrud and his gang of red, white and blue-clad clown pants were
laughing at the scenario - "I told the boys, 'That may have worked in 2002,
but he's gotten better,'" he said in reference to forcing the last-shot draw
strategy - Martin brushes off any references to Salt Lake City.
In the past, is the party line.
"If it does happen, it would be fantastic," he said earlier this week when
asked if Olympic gold would be his crowning achievement. "If it doesn't,
there's not much I can do about that.
"But I can promise you the last three years we've done everything we can
possibly do to swing the odds in our favour. I don't think I'm done just
yet. I'm not ready to exit stage left quite yet.
"But this week is very important to us, and I think we're ready and looking
forward to the task at hand."
Of course, this is a completely different team than the '02 squad. Back
then, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert were still in junior. John Morris was just
cutting his teeth at the men's level.
"It's eight years later and you can't be looking back," Hebert said. "Of
course, we'd like to move a step up on the podium. But we're not focusing on
erasing what happened in Salt Lake City, and neither is Kevin.
"He's very proud to have won a medal ... to win a medal in any sport is a
great thing. But he never talks about not winning gold. Besides, we've got
our own things to take care of here."