Martin sends fans home happy

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This article was published 21/02/2010 (5943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — It was a great show for the Great One — it just took a little while longer to develop than everyone expected.

But in the end, Kevin Martin’s Canadian Olympic team was able to send Wayne Gretzky, and the vast majority of the packed audience, home happy after pounding out a 7-6 win over Britain’s David Murdoch in the most-anticipated match of the Olympic men’s curling round-robin tournament.

The victory snapped Martin’s four-game losing streak to Murdoch, dating back to last year’s world championship in Moncton, where Murdoch beat Martin in the final.

It also put a dent in the British playoff hopes, with the Brits dropping to 3-3 with the loss.

After a sloppy first five ends by both teams, Martin’s half-Edmonton, half-Calgary quartet of third John Morris, second Marc Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert picked it up in the back half to maintain their unbeaten record (6-0) and, in the process, clinched at least a playoff tiebreaker spot with three round-robin games left to play. Canada is back in action this afternoon against Switzerland’s Markus Eggler, then completes the round-robin with games Monday morning against John Shuster of the U.S. and Tuesday afternoon against China’s Fengchun Wang.

Canada took its first lead in the sixth end, scoring two to go up 5-4 and then getting a bad miss out of Murdoch in the seventh end and forcing him to take one.

But Murdoch played a terrific eighth end and forced Martin to make a great shot just to hold the damage to a steal of one, giving the Brits a 6-5 lead.

After a blanked ninth end, the 10th end got off to a rousing start as the crowd put together a spine-tingling, impromptu version of O Canada.

And Kennedy gave them another reason to roar with a terrific hit-and-roll behind a long guard that put Britain on the defensive.

In the end, all Murdoch had to bail out of trouble was a freeze attempt behind a corner guard with his last rock, but he was outside with the delivery, and Canada scored a winning deuce with Martin not having to throw his last rock.

Neither team was making much in the early going. Both seconds –Kennedy and Britain’s Pete Smith — struggled, and neither team was able to set much up in the way of big ends.

— Canwest News Service