Championship Preview: Canada vs. Scotland

Heading into this tournament, Kevin Martin seemed absolutely unstopable. He ran the table at the Brier, handing losses to incredible teams like Glenn Howard's former world champion rink from Ontario, Olympic gold medalist Brad Gushue from Newfoundland, and another former world champion, Kerry Burtnyk. And the squad from Alberta &mdash consisting of Kevin "The Old Bear" Martin, John "Johnny Mo" Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert &mdash came awfully close to another flawless round robin. But that remarkable twenty game win steak came to an end at the hands of Team China, when Martin came up short on a draw in the tenth end to win the game.

For Kevin Martin, the world stage is nothing new. He has competed at the international level multiple teams with his former team, consisting of the legendary Don Walchuk and Don Bartlett. This includes the 1985 World Juniors, the 1991 World Men's Championship, the 1997 World Men's Championship, and even the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Despite all these accomplishments, Martin has never been able to do any better than silver. Even though Martin has been considered by many to be the best curler on the planet, he has yet to win the hardware to prove it. Today he'll get his chance.

To get there, however, Canada will have to go through another great name in curling: David Murdoch. Murdoch is the thirty year-old Scottish powerhouse from Lockerbie. Murdoch is also no stranger to world curling events. But despite being almost a decade younger than Martin, David Murdoch has tasted gold a few times already. In 1995 and 1996, Murdoch became back-to-back world junior champion. In 1998, he represented Scotland at the juniors again, but this time came away with silver.

In 2005, Murdoch made his World Men's debut. And even at his young age, he proved to the world that he was a capable of competing with the big boys, as he earned his way into the gold medal game. However, Murdoch came up short against Randy Ferbey, so he'd have to settle for silver. But the strong performance did secure Murdoch's team a chance to play for Great Britain at the 2006 Winter Olympics. But the Scottish men had a disappointing week, and failed to get a medal after losing to America's Pete Fenson in the bronze medal game. Later that same year, Murdoch returned to the Men's World Championship to redeem himself. Again it was Canada and Scotland in the gold medal game, and this time it was Scotland coming out on top, defeating Jean-Michel Menard of Quebec.

Now it's 2008, and we have another Canada vs. Scotland match-up for gold. Martin managed to beat Murdoch in the round robin, but Murdoch came back to win in the 1 vs. 2 playoff game. Will Kevin Martin finally be able to break that World Championship curse? Or will David Murdoch come away with his second gold medal in three years? The action gets underway at 2:30 p.m. EST (televised on CBC).