VANCOUVER – In the end, it was a draw to the four-foot for the victory, and as Team Canada vice-skip John Morris put it, ”I don’t think he’s missed too many of those in his career.”
Well, in fact, there was one, and the man Canadian skip Kevin Martin (with different teammates then) missed it against back in the 2002 Winter Olympics gold-medal game, Pal Trulsen, was sitting right behind him Tuesday morning at the Vancouver Olympic Centre as the national coach of the Norwegian team Martin was about to defeat in an extra end.
This time, there was no problem. Playing in front of perhaps the liveliest crowd ever assembled for a curling game, Martin made the draw for a 7-6 extra- end win over Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud to open the Olympic men’s tournament.
But if Martin – who later completed a perfect opening day with a 9-4 win over Germany’s Andy Kapp – was oblivious to the parallels to the 2002 game (that was an out-turn, this was an in-turn) as he said he was, his opponents certainly weren’t.
”We actually talked about that before the extra end,” said Ulsrud, decked out in those psychedelic golf pants that will make his team a crowd favourite here (”[It was like] four clowns coming up and down the ice,” said Swedish skip Niklas Edin, who was on a neighboring sheet).
Added Ulsrud: ”Ole (team coach Ole Ingvaldsen) told us to make him try a draw on his last shot, and one of the guys said, ‘Hey, that might have worked back in 2002, but he’s gotten better.’ ”
True enough, but there were some dicey moments en route to the victory. The Canadians raced to a 5-1 lead through four ends – scoring three in the second and two more in the fourth – but when Martin missed a short runback in the fifth, Ulsrud made him pay with a tap to score three, and it was game on for the final five ends until Martin’s half-Calgary, half-Edmonton foursome – Morris, second Marc Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert – finished things off in the extra. The Canadians were scored at a blazing 91 per cent for the game.
”What a heck of a game,” marvelled Martin, a 93 per cent performer himself. ”We had the lead, but you’re not going to be able to keep a guy at bay for the whole game. So they came back – what a game. Man, it feels good to get in and get curling. And an electric atmosphere. Amazing. It was so loud, that was pretty cool.”
It got even louder later Tuesday as Martin had the sellout crowd on its feet with a terrific 20-foot angle-raise takeout to score three in the seventh end en route to a 904 win over Germany’s Andy Kapp to finish off a perfect day.
It was the shot of the day at the VOC (at least, it was until Thomas Dufour’s in-off to score two in the 10th end and give France a 6-5 win over China’s Fengchun Wang), and it left more than 5,000, not to mention his three teammates, pumping their fists. It even prompted his long-time coach Jules Owchar, along with national coach Jim Waite and alternate Adam Enright to rise to their feet and applaud.
”That was a fun one,” nodded Owchar. ”Jim wanted him to draw there, and I said, no Jim, if he feels it, he’s got to go for it. And he’s made so many of those. He was hot tonight; the fifth-end break, I said, ‘I’m not touching you. You’re too hot.’ ”
In other first-round games, Sweden’s Niklas Edin shocked world champ David Murdoch of Britain 6-4, Andy Kapp of Germany turned back John Shuster of the U. S. 7-5 and Switzerland’s Markus Eggler shaded Ulrik Schmidt of Denmark 6-5.
In the other late game, Shuster was heavy with his last shot in the extra end to give Norway a 6-5 victory.
acameron@theherald.canwest.com
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