ATHABASCA — The smile is evident on his face, even over the phone.
In a recent interview, famed Canadian curler Kevin Martin, who skipped his team to victory in numerous World Championships and won three medals at the Olympics—two gold and a silver—was happy to talk about his upcoming trip to Athabasca but first reflected on some of the foundational experiences that brought him to this point. Some of the things that will likely arise when the Rotary Club of Athabasca hosts Martin for an evening of stories October 28, with MC Danny Hooper.
For the skinny boy from Lougheed, Alberta, 185 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, watching his father who was the vice president of the local curling club, Martin spent a lot of time at the rink, not playing, but observing the game and was in elementary school when his father dropped the gauntlet.
“He made the mistake of telling me that if I could get the rock to the other end, the next year, I could start curling,” he said. “I was seven when I got one down to the other end and the next year, true to his word, I started curling lead for him when I was eight.”
By 12, Martin was skipping his own men’s team and never wavered from his meteoric rise in the sport.
“Once I started skipping, we started going to bonspiels,” he said Martin. “And here we are.”
Martin is full of energy, eager to talk about his life and passion for curling.
“You can see how my talk might get off track,” he laughed. “It doesn’t even go in a straight line.”
A Grand Slam curling event seems like it’s been around forever, but Martin came up with the idea in 1997.
“Kevin Albrecht was the president of IMG Canada at the time,” said Martin. “He wasn’t a curler but really loved the idea of having major curling events played for money.”
It was a huge step forward for the sport.
“It was kind of a new concept because everything else—the Briar, World’s, are not about money,” he said, adding SportsNet bought the rights in 2012.
Between running his own curling business, which he started when he was 20, to coaching and public engagements, Martin is a hardworking ambassador of the sport and is excited to see it taking off across the world.
“Curling is just growing by leaps and bounds across Asia, but also in the U.S. where I spend a fair amount of time,” he said. “There are over 200 clubs now in the U.S. The growth has been incredible down south.”
He also noticed an increasing number of young people are finding the sport.
“In Canada, there’s lots of young people curling but it’s still kind of viewed as maybe a little bit of an older person’s game,” Martin said. “Not in any area of the US. It's very much a young persons game.”
He added it’s extremely exciting to see the game he loves going strong.
“It’s really hard to stop when you’ve got it growing like crazy and young people playing, that bodes pretty well,” he said.
Martin will be in Athabasca Oct. 28 to take a tour of the Athabasca Regional Multiplex and talk about his life at the biannual Athabasca Rotary Club’s Celebrity Dinner and Auction with MC and auctioneer Danny Hooper.
“He and I are pretty good friends," said Martin. “It'll be nice to see him, I haven't seen him for a while."
Tickets are on sale at showpass.com or calling Bonnie Nichols at 780-689-6113.
