The “new” Team Kevin Martin: Nedohin’s change of heart propels foursome back into the catbird’s seat for the Olympics

Good thing Kevin Martin, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert waited a bit before making that second call.

They haven't said it outwardly, but my guess is that when Dave Nedohin first turned down their offer to join their team and make a go at an Olympic berth at the Sochi games, the trio thought best to wait to see if a few days of contemplation on Nedohin's part might just have him calling back.

It did.

Now, with a summer of off-season prep and a furious autumn of honing the rough edges ahead, Team Kevin Martin has moved from the category of splintering wreckage to bona fide Olympic team challenger. If the transition from outgoing third John Morris to Nedohin is as smooth as expected, you could even paint a rosy picture of a foursome as good as any that will be at the Olympic Trials in Winnipeg next November.

This is a perfect fit for Martin's team in so many ways. No wonder that they reached out to Nedohin almost immediately after Morris announced he was leaving the team two weeks ago. While Morris' subsequent addition to the Jim Cotter rink last week comes with high hopes for that team, their decision to try a five man rotation leading up to the trials is not a typical blueprint for success in Canadian curling. It comes with more challenges than does the insertion of Nedohin on Martin's team.

Nedohin, who first said 'no' to the overture because of a commitment he'd made to stay close to home and children so his wife, Heather, could pursue her own Olympic dreams as intensely as possible, brings what seems to be the perfect blend of ability and temperament to the Martin team.

(By the way, if they go on to Olympic glories, Martin should think about handing some sort of medal to Nedohin's parents, who've made their son's turnabout possible by deciding to head north from Arizona next fall to tend the homefires. "Our kids are our top priority and when his parents offered him the opportunity to play as they would stay back and help support our very active family it changed the picture," Heather Nedohin wrote in an email. "We have an amazing support team that is dedicating themselves to our life long dream and are committed to it as much as we are. It is a family dream.")

While Nedohin's own teams have struggled in the yearly Alberta playdowns the last couple of years, it's not as though his shotmaking has diminished all that much. Right now, he's not better than Morris, but he doesn't take a backseat, either. You could argue that Morris' upweight hitting abilities outstrip Nedohin's and that might be right, however Nedohin's illustrated gifts for touch shots will be just what the doctor ordered for Martin.

However, this isn't really about who the better shooter is. At least not right now and particularly not for Team Martin. And, it's not a knock on Morris, who for five-plus years provided the Martin team with absolutely everything they needed on the way to Olympic gold, two Briers, a Worlds and 9 grand slam wins.

With the chemistry that made them a fearsome force for those five years in a free fall over the last two seasons - "To be honest, Ben and I were a little bit disappointed over how our back end had been playing the last couple of years," Kennedy had said - a steady hand and easygoing demeanor should be the salve necessary to return this rink to prominence.

The thought that Nedohin and Martin's team can't coexist due to their heated rivalry while Nedohin threw fourth stones for Randy Ferbey is nonsensical. If they had such disdain for each other, would Martin's team have placed a call to Nedohin even as Morris was closing the door on the way out? Would Nedohin put aside firm plans to join a group he didn't care for? Hardly, on both counts. If Nedohin and the Ferbey Four had a real distaste for their rivals, it must surely have had more to do with competitive jealousies than it did personal axes.

At any rate, those theories are about to be put to the test.

No doubt that both Nedohin and Morris need to be better moving ahead. At the season ending Players' Championship, Morris shot 79.9 per cent. That was eleventh among fifteen vices. Nedohin was thirteenth, at 78.7 per cent. By comparison, only one vice shot less than 80 per cent at the 2013 Brier (Morris was at 86 per cent for the round-robin) and the top three were at 88 per cent or better. Jon Mead and Wayne Middaugh, the standards by which all thirds should be measured these days, each ended the Brier at 90 per cent.

Nedohin may be used to throwing skip stones, but backtracking to vice should not be a problem. Tough to find a player who won't agree with the notion that it's a more comfortable situation, pressure-wise. If you've got the stuff to throw skip, you've got the stuff to throw vice.

Another advantage: Nedohin is used to not engineering a game. For years that was Ferbey's duty and Nedohin seemed fine with that. As long as he still feels that way, taking a back seat to Martin won't pose any obstacles.

If it's just rust that's gathered a bit on Nedohin due to the relative lack of big game experience over the last couple of years, that is likely to be remedied by a renewed vigour at having a shot to wear a maple leaf at the Olympics. That and throwing stone after stone after stone in preparation for the trials.

Speaking of renewed vigour, this change should be one that returns Martin to form. After a season dotted with a certain amount of dissension as well as a brief hiccup due to hernia surgery, it's now on him to show that a little chemistry experiment was all that it took to give The Bear back his growl.

The Martin juggernaut had been reduced to just another pretty good team over the last year or so. The addition of Dave Nedohin should push them back into category of teams to be feared.