Martin's Battle of the Blades

We must admit, we were having fun with this headline.

"How about: Martin traded to Storm... for Goldline brush and and bag of Chee-tos?"

You know, that sort of thing.

But on to the story.

In advance of his appearance at The National in January, the second Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, Kevin Martin made a series of promotional appearances in the Guelph, Ontario area earlier this week.

Martin started with a Monday morning trip to a curling club he has visited before. It was the KW Granite Club in Waterloo, the host venue of two TV Skins Games held earlier this decade.

Martin stepped into a club game to call an end and throw a couple of stones (he stole a point). He then answered an unending stream of questions from club members and autographed pictures and brooms.

According to the Waterloo Record, his best story was on the eccentricities of third John Morris. Morris once showed up for a Brier morning draw with an incredibly wrinkled, squashed team jacket. Fearing Morris’s dishevelled appearance was due a late night, the Alberta skip was relieved and amused to hear that Morris had this particular jacket rush-mailed to him from home in an superstitious effort to snap a shooting slump. It worked.

On Tuesday morning, “The Old Bear” dropped by the June Avenue Public School in Guelph, meeting approximately 60 Grade 5 and 6 students to discuss the importance of hard work, and staying focused to achieving goals.

Later that afternoon, Martin laced up his skates to become a Guelph Storm hockey “Player for a Day.”
The 2008 world champion met with Storm players at the Sleeman Centre, site of The National, to provide a motivational address. Afterward, Martin hit the ice with the team and took part in the club’s preliminary practice drills… and even scored a goal (TCN photo by Anil Mungal).

“It was an absolute blast,” Martin told The Curling News. “The guys were real friendly. It was fun to get hockey equipment on for the first time since 1982.

“The biggest message I was trying to get across was believing in themselves. Everyone at this level is good enough to do it. Only the ones that believe deep down they can do it will succeed.”

The Edmonton skip concluded his Ontario spin with a trip to the Guelph Curling Club on Tuesday night. There was another on-ice tutorial session, this time with players from the local Guelph high school league, followed by a meet and greet autograph session with club members, and Guelph Mayor Karen Farbridge.

Hockey curling stone

Olympic sponsor Samsung has a new series of viral videos out and about, including this one featuring a hockey player, a goaltender and curling stone.

One guess as to what happens.

AdGabber’s Steve Hall bemoans the fact that while we all know such videos are faked, we still feel compelled to watch them.

“We are still amazed,” says Hall. “It’s like a Saw movie. We don’t want to watch but we can’t turn away as people are slowly and gruesomely mutilated in new and different ways.”

We don't blame Hall for his dismay: after all, he's paid to watch hundreds of these things each month. Talk about maddening.

But for curling fans, this is fun stuff.

Curling Eye on Hockey’s Winter Classic

The NHL pro hockey league will be using curling’s famed Eye on the Ice system for the annual outdoor Winter Classic at famed Wrigley Field on New Year’s day.

You can see the field of play being finalized here, also captured above, via web-cam.

The electronic system was created by curling ice maestro Hans Wuthrich, and despite the go-slow approach of NHL facilities guy Dan Craig, it’s only a matter of time – and money – before the system makes its way into each NHL building.

As it should.

The story itself is located here.

Shortly after Chicago, Wuthrich will jet to Ontario for round two of the Casino Rama Curling Skins Game, a TV extravaganza we covered last year a) rather b) extensively (and in many blogposts in between) ...

Piper Doon

by Matt Hames

RAMA – The piper is a goalie.

Take a close look. The middle piper for today’s Skins final was none other than this guy, TSN Hockey commentator and former NHL goaltender Glenn Healy.

We mentioned it was cold in here... we nae shall ask him questions aboot his kilt!