Once opponents, John Morris, foreground, and Kevin Martin are now on the same side. (Canadian Press)

Stop us if you've heard this one before: Seeking an Olympic gold medal to complete his career, a decorated veteran skip joins forces with a hotshot youngster who surrenders his own game-calling duties to play under the wing of one of curling's all-time greats.

Of course, this was the plotline followed by 49-year-old Russ Howard and 25-year-old Brad Gushue, who teamed up to capture Canada's first-ever Olympic men's curling title last February in Turin, Italy.

Now another dynamic duo is hoping to write a new chapter to the same story. Fellow Alberta skips Kevin Martin, 40, and John Morris, 28, have entered into a long-term partnership with an eye toward qualifying for the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

Like Howard and Gushue before them, the motivation is simple.

"We both want to be part of the best team in the world," says Morris, who agreed over the off-season to relinquish his usual role as skip to throw third rocks for Martin. "Winning that Olympic gold in 2010 is our No. 1 priority. That's the pinnacle for every curling team in the world."

With talented youngsters Ben Hebert (lead) and Marc Kenndy (second) on board on the front end, the all-world anchor duo carries a heavy resume file into this week's Masters of Curling in Waterloo, Ont., the first Grand Slam stop for the foursome.

Martin, who recently split with long-time teammates Don Walchuk, Don Bartlett and Carter Rycroft, is a two-time Brier champion skip who captured silver at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Morris, who grew up in Ottawa, led his Ontario team to back-to-back world junior crowns in 1998 and ’99 before making it to the 2002 Brier title game. He also defeated Martin in last year's Olympic trials before bowing out to Jeff Stoughton in the semifinal.

Rough waters ahead?

While their credentials compare favourably to those of the 2006 Olympic champions and their planned destination is identical, Martin and Morris will be trying a slightly different path.

Most notably, the journey will be a lot longer. Whereas Howard and Gushue needed less than a season together to reach Turin, Martin and Morris must co-exist for over three years to get to Vancouver.

So far, so good. The team won three of its first six World Curling Tour events this season while finishing in the top-two four times, good for second on the money list.

As the good times roll, Morris says he's happy throwing third. But both he and Martin acknowledge that the real test will come if, or when, the team comes down to Earth.

"A real team shows its strength when it's losing, not when it's winning," Martin says. "Winning is easy. Everybody gets along great. I want to see what happens when we go on about a six-game losing streak."

Martin and Morris aren't alone in wondering how things will break when they hit a rough patch. Some, for instance, have pointed out that Gushue and Howard -- the former a dazzling shotmaker lacking a refined game plan, the latter a cunning strategist past his prime as a shooter -- realized they needed each other to compensate for the deficiencies in their respective games. Martin and Morris, on the other hand, might consider themselves more able to go it alone.

The team of Russ Howard and Brad Gushue produced Olympic gold at the Torino Games in 2006. (Andrew Vaughan/Associated Press)

Third rocks, second fiddle

CBC curling analyst Mike Harris, who has skipped against both men on the cash spiel circuit, says each possesses the skills to be successful but questions whether Morris will be content to defer to Martin over the long haul.

"John Morris is younger and more volatile, while Martin is, from a skipping standpoint, a lot more level," Harris says. "It's going to be a question of them meeting in the middle. Kevin likes making all the final decisions and, for a former skip, it's not always an easy thing to jump into playing third for a guy like that."

Morris, a skip since the age of five, says he has no problem playing second (third?) fiddle.

"It doesn't matter to me if I'm lead, second, third or skip on the team, as long as I'm part of a team that's able to be as successful as possible," he says.

Morris insists he's enjoying his new role as the link between the front end and the skip, positions that are often isolated from each other during games. He even claims to relish some of the grunt work.

"I really enjoy the sweeping aspect because fitness has always been a priority in my life," he says. "I think I get the best of both worlds because I get to sweep, I get to communicate with all the other guys on the team and I get to set up my skipper."

'A million miles an hour'

The skipper, for his part, thinks the world of his prodigious third, sometimes sounding himself like an awed youngster rather than a hardened veteran.

Martin say Morris is one of the most talented curlers he's seen in a long time. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

“John Morris is, I think, the most talented young person to come up in a long, long time,” Martin says. “He came right out of juniors and stepped into the top five in the world. I don’t know of anybody who’s done that in, say, the last 20 years.”

What Martin – who begins before pausing in mid-thought, chuckling at the precocious nature of his partner – didn’t realize, being one of Morris's competitors, was the short amount of time he's been around.

“About five years. That’s all he’s been around after juniors. Hard to imagine, all that he’s done already.”

Morris is also effusive in his praise of Martin.

“Kevin is one of the greatest players in this game and I think he’s still at the pinnacle of his game,” says Morris. “There’s been numerous times this year when he’s stood on his head and won games on his own.

“He can still throw it a million miles an hour. Some of the shots he has in his repertoire are great, and he’s shown me some strategies and some shots I’ve never thought of before.”

CNN?

The 12-year age gap has also introduced both men to some new, often amusing, habits away from the ice.

“I don’t think it’s a big thing for the boys to be done curling and head back to the room, have a cup of coffee and watch CNN,” Martin says with a laugh. “I don’t think they even knew CNN existed. That’s the truth.”

Morris says Martin is at the "pinnacle of his game." (Canadian Press)

Morris, too, chuckles when told of Martin’s wonderment at his young teammates’ ignorance of the world's best-known cable news channel.

“We had a couple of raised eyebrows at the first couple of spiels,” he says. “Now Kev will get his own room and he can watch CNN all he wants.”

“But from all the signs I’ve seen, he’s enjoying himself and we’re enjoying ourselves, and I think it’s only going to get more and more exciting.”

If so, the tale of Kevin Martin and John Morris could lead to a happy ending in Vancouver.