Youth served by Grand Slam events: Martin

The Winnipeg Free Press Online Edition (subscription) - Youth served by Grand Slam events: Martin

Thu Jan 5 2006

By Chris Cariou

KEVIN MARTIN has won a lot of money on the Ultima World Curling Tour in addition to his Canadian championships and his silver medal from the 2002 Winter Olympics.
And while the Edmonton skip is still smarting from his team’s failure to win the recent Olympic curling trials in Halifax, he says WCT Grand Slam events like the 2006 BDO Classic Open beginning this afternoon at MTS Centre have become a rite of passage for the likes of young teams like Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue, the 25-year-old who did win the Olympic berth.

“I’m glad Brad could be here today because the Grand Slams are a lot of the reason why the young guys like Gushue and (Calgary’s John) Morris can compete at that level so quick,” Martin said yesterday at the Children’s Hospital, which will receive all proceeds from the $100,000 event featuring 15 elite teams.

“In the past, the young players never got the opportunity to play in big arena events against the best teams until later in their careers so it’s kind of neat to be able to have them here now that they’re going to the Olympics. And one of the reasons they are going to the Olympics is due to the Slams.”

Before the WCT and particularly the advent of Slam events like the BDO Classic, the only avenue for Canada’s best teams — old or young — was to win their province and do well in the Brier, then hope to advance to the world championship. But the tour has helped changed all that quickly, Martin said. Particularly the big-money Slam events, which — unlike the Brier, he said — feature the best of the best.

“What it does in a very short time is, as you noticed in Halifax, dropped the age of the player,” Martin said. ” What it shows is a real change in the average age of our champions and it’ll continue to drop as these young players are allowed to play at more and more of these big events. That’s fantastic for the sport, that’s a very healthy trend.”

Gushue, whose team has only been out of juniors for a few years, agreed that being able to play teams like Martin, Stoughton, Randy Ferbey and others at Grand Slams has elevated his team’s game. But he said there are a lot of good young rinks out there that can’t get into such exclusive events.

“That’s what I don’t like about it. But once you break through and get in, yeah, you’re going to elevate your game. You have no choice, really. The tour’s been great and having these events in arena settings, it’s also going to prepare teams for when they go to the Olympics, the Brier and world championships.

“I think it’s great for curling, I think there needs to be more events like this.”

Native Winnipegger Dave Nedohin, who throws fourth rocks for Ferbey’s Edmonton foursome, said the emergence of Grand Slams like the BDO Classic has played a part in the development in Canada of young, elite teams like Gushue, Simmons and Morris.

But he said there’s more to it than just the Slams.

“Part of it is the Olympics are a full medal sport (since 1998) so now you have teams that are younger that are working out, they’re more athletic, saying this is a dream of ours, to go to the Olympics,” Nedohin said. “So that element has changed the demographic of who’s playing and who’s training hard and who has set goals in this sport.”

chris.cariou@freepress.mb.ca

BDO Classic facts

SOME facts on the Ultima World Curling Tour’s 2006 BDO Classic Open running today through Sunday at MTS Centre:

* $100,000 in total prize money is up for grabs; the winners of each of three pools, plus the top five other teams, will advance to the playoffs.

* Ticket sales as of yesterday were on pace to break last year’s total record of more than 47,000. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster (780-3333 or www.ticketmaster.ca).

* Tomorrow night’s draw at 8 p.m. will feature a tribute to Winnipeg’s Kerry Burtnyk, a two-time world champion and Hall of Famer who is not curling this year.

* Saturday’s theme will be Newfoundland, honouring the Brad Gushue team that won the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax before Christmas by beating Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton in the final. Newfie food will be on the menu. * Classic organizers are asking fans to bring their Canadian flags Sunday to cheer on Canadian women’s Olympic representative Shannon Kleibrink of Alberta, who will play U.S. representative Cassie Johnson of Bemidji, Minn., in a tuneup exhibition game during the Classic semifinals at noon. Italian cuisine, as per the Olympics being held in Turin, Italy, will be served.

* All proceeds from the four-day event will go to the Children’s Hospital Foundation. The hospital admits about 130,000 children from all across Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario and Nunavut each year.

– Cariou