Team Martin at the Granite Club

Last night at the Granite Club, I was part of a tremendous evening with Team Kevin Martin. The club, which was the site of the first 13 Briers and is one of the more remarkable sports complexes in Canada, brought Martin, John Morris, Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy in for three days in which they participated in clinics, some meet and greets and last night, the first of two presentations about their Olympic experience. They’ll do that all over again tonight for the first night of the men’s invitational bonspiel, which starts today.

The boys gave a great slide show of their Olympic experience, taking the 150 or so folks in attendance behind the scenes in Vancouver 2010.

Among the things the folks in attendance learned was that the team almost didn’t have a place to stay during the Olympics (outside of the village where they were before and after their competition), didn’t know quite what to do on that infamous night the fans spontaneously broke into Oh Canada, and the team’s coach, Jules Owchar may have infected the Russian hockey team with the flu

Oh we also found out that one of Ben’s nickname’s is Field Mouse.

It's amazing how, almost two years after the event, the memories still stir up strong emotions in Canadians, as evidenced in the standing ovation the boys received. 

There aren’t many curling clubs that would have the ability to bring in a team of this notoriety to their club but kudos to Gareth Watson and his group for making it happen. For anyone who watched Team Martin at the Olympics, whether live or on TV, it was a wonderful evening,