Martin says joining world hall of fame ‘feels good’
Longtime coach Owchar likens Olympian to ‘Wayne Gretzky when he was young’
It was in 1985 in Inverness, Scotland that Kevin Martin and his coach Jules Owchar were billeted in a home at the world juniors.
“The home where they were billeted was mine,” Kate Caithness whispered.
Tuesday afternoon here, before Canada’s game against Japan, World Curling Federation president Caithness inducted Martin as the 41st member of the World Curling Hall of Fame.
“I also presented him with his 2010 Olympic banner,” she said.
Caithness was standing beside Martin’s career coach, Owchar, as she told the story.
Owchar leaned on the hockey boards behind the Orleans Arena ice surface to watch the induction. He has his own stories.
“That was terrific,” he said of experiencing Martin’s moment.
“It’s kind of nice just to sit back and see that. He deserves it. If anybody deserves it, he deserves it. It’s been a 30-year relationship and you couldn’t ask for a better one,” said the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology coach who took a kid from Lougheed, Alta., into his program.
“I watched him grow. I watched how hard he dedicated himself to the sport.”
Owchar has since coached Brad Gushue to two Brier wins and is coaching him here in a second straight world championship.
In his acceptance speech, Martin told the story of walking into Owchar’s office at NAIT asking if he could try out for his curling team.
“I had seen him play once in juniors,” Owchar said. “You couldn’t miss him because he had this great mop of blond hair. He walked in and said ‘I want to curl for the team.’ It was a miracle ride.
“He was a little wild back then. He liked to party. I remember his dad saying, ‘Whew, I’m glad you’ve got him so you can do something with him.’”
Owchar coached Martin through three Olympics (winning gold in Vancouver 2010 and silver at Salt Lake 2002), 12 Briers (four titles), four world championships (one crown), 15 Grand Slam wins and a world junior title.
“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 undefeated to win 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 and his first major sponsor, Bruce Saville of Edmonton.
“I went to Jules back in 1984 because I was told he was the best curling coach in Canada.”
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 now also the losses.
Which is good because while Martin is known for all his wins, which included a record 18 Slam events, he was also known for his international failures, winning only one of four World Curling Championship finals, for example.
“Those big losses in big finals, that’s good, too,” he said in a scrum in the mixed zone 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, from 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. It’s not a very long list of people in this Hall of Fame,” he said.
Asked if he feels like a hall of famer, Martin thought about it.
“Yeah, I do, actually. It feels good.”