Markku Uusipaavalniemi didn't want to take too much of the credit, but any time you can beat the reigning Olympic curling champion, it's a big achievement.
Uusipaavalniemi won the final three skins at Thursday night's Westcoast Classic Skins Game to beat Kevin Martin $900 to $350 in a highly-entertaining appetizer for this weekend's $64,000 tournament.
The Finn got his deuce in the fourth and stole the skins in the fifth and sixth to overcome a deficit that Martin earned with skins in the second and third ends.
Uusipaavalniemi admits he may have gotten lucky with his final stone in the fourth, a takeout of a Martin stone where his shooter stayed around for second stone.
"We were playing for two possibilities," said the Finn. "Maybe we got lucky, but they played very well."
Uusipaavalniemi got his steal in the fifth when Martin's final stone picked before entering the house and the Finn's steal in the sixth was because the Finnish team left Martin no options but a circus-like angle raise.
"He left us nothing," said Martin. "Markku and his team played very well."
Martin said he was happy to get out on the Royal City Curling Club ice and get a better feel before the weekend.
"The ice was good, rocks were moving a lot," said Martin, "and the good thing about a Skins Game is with so many rocks in play, you have to try and play some hard shots."
One such hard shot got Martin his skins in the second end.
Facing two Finnish rocks in the four-foot, Martin had to play a tough angle raise that he executed to perfection. He removed both Finnish rocks and even had a third counter to win the $200 skin after the first end's skin was carried over.
Martin won his final $150 in the third end before Uusipaavalniemi won $200 in the fourth end and $300 in the fifth end before a final $400 skin in the sixth end.
Despite the loss, Martin couldn't help smiling because every visit back to the Lower Mainland brings back great memories for the Olympic champion from Vancouver 2010.
"We enjoy Vancouver so much, a lot of great memories," he said, adding their visit here last year was such a whirlwind, coming only eight months after they won their Olympic gold.
Making this weekend's event even more important is that with Canadian Curling officials making a slight change to the qualifying criteria for the next Olympics, valuable World Curling Tour and Canadian Team Ranking System points are an additional prize at the Westcoast Curling Classic.
"This is the first of three years of trying to get points," said Martin. "We're already looking ahead to 2014 (in Sochi, Russia)."
The Westcoast Curling Classic is now underway, with four draws on Friday and Saturday, three draws Sunday and then Championship Monday, with the finale scheduled for 3 p.m.
Friday's action got going with the feature matches being Laycock playing Beighton, Cotter against Shen and Kedziora against McEwen, currently ranked second behind only Martin.
Martin plays in Draw B against Merklinger, with both skips having ice-making experience and a unique perspective on the game. Also in Draw B, Ferbey plays Wood, Koe plays Bilesky and Miki plays Petryk.
Event passes are on sale at the Royal City Curling Club for $30, day passes for $10, and passes for Monday are $15. For more info, go to www.westcoastcurling classic.com.
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