EDMONTON – Kevin Martin’s Olympic silver medal is stowed safely away in a safety deposit box.
An Olympic medal is only replaced if it is destroyed – not if it is stolen, Martin said. And the Canadian’s men’s skip at the Vancouver Games learned the hard way about the dangers of keeping valuables in the home when his house was burgled in 1999.
There was something of a happy ending when he received a call last summer from a golf course in Chilliwack, B.C., about a 1997 Brier championship ring that had been found. The person who found it looked Martin up on his website and called to return it.
There is no trophy room in the Martin household although there is a section set aside for one someday.
“I’m really just not built that way,” he explained. “We have about 10 of those Rubbermaid tubs – you can’t have them in boxes because if there’s a flood they will get wet. We’ve got them in the Rubbermaid boxes in the storage room.
“My wife keeps saying someday we’re going to go through those things and we’re going to set up that trophy room.”
Mike Harris, runner-up at the 1998 Games, isn’t fussy, it seems. He told reporters he keeps his silver medal in a sock drawer.
