On curling’s fast lane

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/02/2002 (8879 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OGDEN, UTAH — You’ve probably never heard of him. And there’s a good chance you might never hear of him again. But if things keep going here the way they have been for the Kevin Martin Canadian curling outfit, there’s an excellent chance that by the end of next week Ken Tralnberg will have an Olympic medal hanging around his neck.

A 45-year-old children’s advocate from St. Albert, Alta., Tralnberg has never curled in so much as a Brier.

But he’s now curled in the Winter Olympics, after the alternate on Martin’s team here was inserted for one end yesterday — in place of longtime Martin lead Don Bartlett — in a 9-4 thumping of Finland that improved the Martin squad to a perfect 3-0.

Tralnberg threw just two rocks in his Olympic debut, one of them through the house and the second to the back 12-foot. And while that translated into just a 25 per cent shooting percentage, it’s all Tralnberg needed to be eligible for his own Olympic medal should Martin finish in the top three here next week.

Cool, eh?

“It’s a great thrill,” said Tralnberg. “I’ve been an athlete all my life. It’s a dream come true. And at my age, it’s really a gift.”

A native of Saskatchewan, Tralnberg has bounced around Western Canada curling circles for years, playing with Martin for a couple of seasons in the mid-’90s and once getting as far as the Saskatchewan men’s final.

But that’s been it. Until yesterday. “I’ve been a nomad on the curling scene for the last 15 to 20 years,” Tralnberg explained.

His curling fortunes first began to take a decided turn for the better one day last summer when his cell phone rang while on a trip through Northern Alberta.

“It was a work day, early June I guess it was,” Tralnberg recalled.

“Don Bartlett called me on my cell and asked if I was interested in being their fifth man for the Olympic Trials. And he said, ‘You don’t have to rush or anything. Give it some thought.’

“And I said, ‘I already have.'”

Martin said he was only too happy to get the chance to put Tralnberg into a lopsided game yesterday, accomplishing the twin objectives of making the alternate medal-eligible and also giving a break to Bartlett, who is battling a sore back here.

“I was kind of hoping he’d get to play a few more ends,” Martin said.

Tralnberg said he took the ice in the sixth and final end determined only not to hurt his team. “The score was 9-2 and so just theory-wise, that rock better not be in front of the rings,” Tralnberg said of his first Olympic rock sailing through the house.

Martin had a slightly different theory on Tralnberg’s big weight on a rock that was supposed to come to rest in the top-eight foot.

“Throwing that first one through, you know the heart must have been pumping,” Martin grinned.

Martin said Bartlett’s battled lower back problems “for as long as I’ve known him” and that there’s nothing especially wrong with him here that cannot be fixed with some rest.

And Bartlett will get some of that rest here today as the Canadian men have a bye on this morning’s men’s draw and don’t play again until tonight against France.

The French rink is 0-3 — and have a woeful 62 per cent team curling percentage. And so if Canada gets up early again tonight, Martin said he’ll likely insert Tralnberg again.

While still yet to lose here, Martin wasn’t getting too excited yesterday about his early Olympics success. “The three games we’ve played were all against contending teams. So that’s important.

“But it is a round-robin. So it doesn’t really matter. It kind of matters. But for us it’s a race to seven wins. Eight would be perfect. That’s sort of our goal. If we reach it, that’s great.”

Tralnberg, meantime, just seemed content yesterday to have the privilege of forever saying he’s curled in the Olympics, however briefly.

“I said to Kevin, ‘This makes it official.'”