Niklas Edin
Kevin Martin
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Niklas Edin leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Niklas Edin at #1 and Kevin Martin at #7.
The case for Niklas Edin
The most decorated curler in history by any measure. Edin skipped Sweden to eight world titles between 2013 and 2026, including four in a row across 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, and closed his career by beating Canada 9-6 in the 2026 final in Ogden to break his own record. He is also the only skip to win three Olympic medals, taking bronze at Sochi 2014, silver at PyeongChang 2018 and finally gold in Beijing 2022, plus eight European Championship titles. Six of his eight world finals were won against Canadian rinks, which is the statistic that best captures what he did to the sport's balance of power: he took a country with a fraction of Canada's playing base and made it the default favourite for a decade. He retired in May 2026, weeks after the eighth title, with a combined 38 championship medals on World Curling's recognised list.
The case for Kevin Martin
For twenty years the standard against which Canadian men's teams measured themselves, and the skip who best exploited the professional circuit that emerged in the 2000s. Martin won Olympic gold at Vancouver 2010 with a flawless tournament, 9-0 through the round robin and 11-0 overall, the first side to sweep an Olympic curling event since Great Britain in 1924, having taken silver at Salt Lake City in 2002. He added the world championship in 2008 and four Brier titles across three decades, in 1991, 1997, 2008 and 2009, going 11-0 and 13-0 in the last two. His fifteen Grand Slam titles and two Olympic trials wins reflect a career built as much on tour earnings as on national championships, and his teams' relentless takeout game defined Canadian men's curling before the five-rock rule arrived.