Kevin Martin of Edmonton will return to the Olympic Games as Canada’s skip in February at Vancouver.

Martin and his team of John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert defeated Glenn Howard of Coldwater, ON., 7-3 in the men’s final of the Tim Hortons Canadian Olympic Curling Trials on Sunday at Edmonton’s Rexall Place.

As the Trials winner, Martin will receive $180,000 over a 30-month (2½ years) period from Sport Canada as A-carded athletes.

In addition, for the first time in Trials history, the Canadian Curling Association, in partnership with the Edmonton host committee, have allocated $50,000 from the Trials net profit to be directed to the team, to help defray Olympic-related costs for both the team and family members, from accommodation to tickets to training and competition expenses.

As two of the top four seeds at the Trials, the Martin and Howard teams have also received $40,000 each from Own the Podium 2010, $30,000 of which was to be directed to training and competition expenses, $10,000 to sport science and sports medicine expenses.

Canada has won three medals in men’s curling at the last three Olympic Winter Games.  Mike Harris of Toronto won silver at Nagano, Japan, in 1998, Martin skipped a different lineup to silver at Salt Lake City in 2002, and Brad Gushue of St. John’s, NL was Canada’s first-ever men’s gold-medal winner in curling at Torino, Italy, in 2006.