Martin savours ‘terrif ic’ moment

“Looking back, I think it must have been like someone who was around Wayne Gretzky when he was young,” Owchar said. “You had to know Kevin was going to be good, but did I know he was going to be the greatest curler who ever played?”

In his acceptance speech, Martin mentioned the names of all the curlers he played with in his career, including John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert, with whom he went undefeated to win two Briers and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic gold medal. He reserved special praise for them.

“I think that was the best team that ever took the ice,” Martin said.

He also made special mention, of course, of Owchar.

“I went to Jules back in 1984 because I was told he was the best curling coach in Canada,” he said.

Martin remembered how he found three grown men in Lougheed who let him skip their team when he was 12.

He said he was happy the WCF waits four years for a player to become eligible for induction into its Hall of Fame because in that time, he’s learned not only to cherish the wins over his career, but also the losses.

That’s good — because Martin may have been known for all his wins, which included a record 18 slam events, but he was also known for his international failures, winning only one of four World Curling Championship finals.

“Those big losses in big finals, that’s good, too,” he said in a scrum after he left the ice.

“You don’t learn anything from winning. You learn a lot from losing, and it keeps the ego down, I’ ll tell you.”

Martin figures the slam series, now owned by Sportsnet and providing eight $100,000 events for both men and women, will be a big part of his legacy.

“I think that had a lot to do with dropping the average age of the athlete,” he said.

He also said he was blessed to have been a curler from Western Canada, Alberta and Edmonton in particular.

“You really, really got competition,” he said. “All those years of battling before there was a tour and all that stuff, the depth of the competition gave me the chance to get better.”

He was genuinely pleased with the day and the honour.

“It means a lot to me,” he said. “It’s not a very long list of people in this Hall of Fame.”

Asked if he feels like a hall of famer, Martin thought about it.

“Yeah, I do actually,” he said. “It feels good.”