By MARIO ANNICCHIARICO, edmontonjournal.com.
LONDON, ONT. — After taking his lumps from @fakekevinmartin on Twitter for the last couple of weeks, Prince Edward Island’s Eddie MacKenzie experienced a few bumps first-hand, on the ice, from the man he admits to being inspired by.
The real Kevin Martin reeled off his record 30th straight Tim Hortons Brier win Monday afternoon at the expense of MacKenzie, using deuces in the first and third ends and adding a three-ender in the sixth en route to a 9-2 seven-end rout of Mackenzie.
The victory moved Martin to 4-0 at the 2011 national curling championship being played at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ont., keeping him within striking range of leader Jeff Stoughton of Manitoba, who defeated Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs 8-4 to move to 5-0 in the afternoon.
MacKenzie, meanwhile, remains winless — the only team without a victory — at 0-5.
“It would have been nice if we could have given him his first loss in a couple of years, but …” said MacKenzie, when asked what it was like to play the legendary Martin, who he holds in high regard.