David Murdoch will be out for blood as the Scots meet Canada’s champion Kevin Martin this Saturday. If you think Murdoch represents Great Britain, you’re sadly mistaken. Every Canadian curler knows Murdoch and his team of Byers, Smith and MacDonald as simply The Scottish Team. Those same Canadian curlers also know that the game of curling is an ancient plot against the New World, hatched by the devious Scots centuries ago.

The terrible feud that has grown between our countries dates back to the very beginning of curling near Paisley Abbey in Scotland. Curling would not have been born then except that times were difficult. Local stonemasons were particularly suffering. In fact, building new stone cottages was at such an all-time low that the stonemasons decided to heave their building rocks into the White Cart Water, a tributary of the River Clyde, as a gesture of protest. Not an easy task. Just carrying these granite stones to the water’s edge was a challenge because the banks of shore were so steep. Several enterprising masons solved the problem by attaching temporary wooden handles to each rock the night before the protest.

Dawn broke the next day to reveal local residents, including the Abbot and most of the monks, gathered along the water’s edge to view the coming spectacle. Shortly thereafter, the husky Scottish stonemasons arrived, all carrying a rock in each hand by the wooden handles. But the wintery night had been bitterly cold and ice had formed for almost 150 feet out into the water. Transporting the rocks out over the ice to open water was impossible. Each rock weighed over 40 pounds. The stonemasons would break through and drown. Ever enterprising, the masons decided that with a stout push they could slide the rocks from the shoreline across the ice and into the water.

The first mason propelled a rock across the ice but it failed to reach the open water. What to do now? The masons decided that on the next throw the burliest of them would give a mighty heave and throw a second rock with such force that it would strike the first and both rocks would slide into the water. But, as the burliest threw his rock, his foot slipped and his rock spun out of control across the ice. The crowd groaned, clearly the direction of the second rock was such that it would never come close to hitting the first.

But then a strange thing happened. As the second rock spun across the ice, its path began to turn in the direction of the first rock until it made hard contact and both rocks were driven into the water. The crowd cheered heartily, feeling no doubt that the Abbot’s silent blessing had turned the second rock to its target. A local farmer stepped forward with a shovel and “hacked” depressions in the frozen shoreline so the next masons could brace their toes for the next throws. The crowd even clapped in appreciation as a brave maiden ventured a dozen feet out on the treacherous ice, sweeping the frost from the path of the next rocks with her broom.

As the protest continued that morning, one spectator is recorded as saying that as he watched the clergy “a smile of divine inspiration slowly crept across the face of the Abbot”. (Of course, he said it in Gaelic.) When the last rock was thrown, the Abbot gathered the stonemasons together and told them of his plot to put every Scottish mason back to work, a fearsome conspiracy that was to addict many Canadians.

“No longer,” the Abott said (in more Gaelic), “shall ye and ye sons shape the granite for only home and hearth and endure poverty. As we have watched yon rocks curl across the ice this morn, we have been witness to a new feat of strength and skill for all men. But for now those truly marked to practice this new challenge live across the sea in a new country where the ice never disappears. A prosperous countryside, riche in furs. A country where, with mine blessings, the growing population might just be of such mental aptitude that we can convince them to purchase the one thing faire Scotland has in endless supply… granite rocks.”

And so the Abbot first implemented his devious plan across what is now called the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario. The long days and nights of winter rang with the shouts and laughter of our forefathers. Soon women felt the addiction and eventually even our vulnerable children. But no part of Canada suffered more from the Abbot’s wily machinations than the West. Farmers who slaved hard in the prairie heat during the summer months had endless time during the other three seasons to participate in what by then was called curling. Families living on those lonely western farms in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were torn asunder unless all participated but in that crucible were born some of Canada’s greatest curlers. Wheat joined fur in the holds of ships returning to Scotland. What did Canadians have to show for it? A bigger pile of rocks with handles.

How shrewd were those pecuniary Scots but the Abbot’s ancient plot was to backfire. Canadians like Russ Howard, the father of the Free Guard Zone, have snatched the modern game away from its country of birth. Scotland may squeal but accept this new reality of ownership they must — just like Canadians have had to accept the loss of the modern game of basketball to our southern neighbour. (Give it a few years and some more Yankee revisionist history and the U.S. will have always owned it.)

Scotland vs. Canada will be the most exciting match of the 2010 Olympiad. Kevin Martin, The Old Bear from Alberta, is not named after the rather benign eastern Canadian black bear but the western grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis). On their best days, Hebert, Kennedy and Morris are more than capable of neutralizing their counterparts. But it will be a clash of curling champions at all positions. Amateur genealogists have traced the lineage of Byers, Smith and MacDonald back to William Wallace, Rob Roy and Robert the Bruce.

As for David Murdoch? One aspiring historian has suggested that he is a direct descendent of a great Scottish king made famous by William Shakespeare… Macbeth himself. Readers can be forgiven for thinking that Macbeth is a fictional character. In fact, he ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057. Macbeth did kill Duncan whose son, Malcolm, eventually defeated Macbeth in battle at Dunsinane and replaced him as king — much as the Bard’s witches predicted. The same historian has also suggested that one of the convolutions of the name Malcolm over the last millennium is Martin.

If too much of this writing seems speculative, one truth remains certain. Come Saturday night at the Vancouver Olympic Centre, blood will flow.