European championship medal winners and national champions Team Mouat and Team Morrison have been selected to fly the saltire at this season’s World Curling Championships.
In the men’s event Team Mouat – Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan - are looking to complete a full set of medals, having won bronze on their debut in 2018, then silver on the most recent of their three appearances, two years ago. 
Since then they became the first Scottish men’s team to achieve top spot in the world rankings last year on the back of an unprecedented run which saw them become the first non-Canadian team to win three Grand Slam of Curling events and they also reached the final at last year’s Winter Olympics.
“It’s always great to get the phone call saying that we’ve been selected to represent Scotland at a Worlds and that was our main target this season, to get back there and hopefully go one better than 2021,” skip Mouat said of their selection for the trip to Ottawa in April.
“Winning a bronze at our first Worlds was very exciting and definitely gave us a taste of what to expect in our first season together and the drive to go for the gold and to get very close in 2021 was very exciting, so hopefully we can have a really good week, knowing we’re in really good form going into it.
“We had a lot of really good games at the Scottish Championship last week against all the British Curling funded teams. It’s great to see all the talent that Scotland’s got and we’re going to use all the experience we gained last week.”
In the wake of making their Olympic debut, the team has faced unexpected challenges at the start of this new season, a broken hand suffered by second Bobby Lammie forcing them into line-up re-shuffles early in their campaign.
However, they ended 2022 impressively, claiming their third title on their third appearance at the European Championships and have carried that form into the New Year, beating a powerful field to retain their Perth Masters title before winning the national championships for the fourth time in their last four appearances in that event. 
“It’s been an interesting season on the back of the Olympics and the boys and I have worked pretty hard with our new coach Mikey (Goodfellow) now joining us as well. It’s been good and having some recent success has been exciting for all of us.”
The victory in the nationals at Dumfries took Mouat’s men back to second spot in the world rankings, just behind Sweden’s Team Edin, the reigning world champions and with European teams currently occupying three of the top four places in the men’s rankings, heading into the Worlds as European champions.
“That gives us a bit of a momentum boost going in I suppose,” Mouat acknowledged.
“In winning that championship this season we beat a lot of the teams we’re going to be at the Worlds with and while that doesn’t really mean anything in itself when you get to the Worlds, we had a great week at the Europeans and know that if we can replicate that we should be pretty close.
“European teams are definitely climbing the rankings and it’s very hard to beat most of them, but we’re excited to be heading back to a Worlds and trying to win it for the first time.
“It will be tough with the likes of Niklas (Edin) and Joel Retornaz (Italy) and there are a few other teams that haven’t been decided yet, but whoever is going for the likes of Switzerland and Canada is going to be tough regardless, so we know we’ll have to play very well to medal and hopefully get that gold finally.”
While Team Morrison – Rebecca Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson - made their World Championship debut last year, their trip to Sandviken in Sweden will provide them with their first real chance to show what they can do at this level after their bid was cruelly cut short when COVID struck their camp very early in the event, forcing their withdrawal.
“Last year was incredibly difficult, having to withdraw from the World Championships, especially as you just never know when you’re going to get an opportunity like that again, so we’re absolutely delighted to be getting it just a year later and hopefully everything will go a lot smoother this time,” said skip Morrison.
Their belief in their capacity to compete has been boosted in the interim by claiming a bronze medal on their debut at the European Championships earlier this season, as well as their authoritative defence of their national title as, like Team Mouat, they powered through the event unbeaten.
“Even though it’s now a case of selection for the World Championships, winning the Scottish title meant so much to our team. It’s such an important competition to us,” said Morrison.
“And having the experience of the Europeans, where curling is so strong right now and getting a good few wins over great teams there gives us so much confidence going into these World Championships.
“At the Europeans we got wins over teams such as Sweden and Italy, so that puts us in good stead.
“Goal one will be to make the play-offs and we’ll just take it step by step from there. We know it’s going to be tough out there.
“There are a lot of brilliant teams and plenty that we’ve never played before, so it will be a new experience for us and we’re just looking forward to taking in as much as we can ahead of these Olympic qualifying points years that are coming up.” 
Returning to the country in which they won that European Championship medal also has the potential to be beneficial, as Morrison observed.
“We have some great memories of playing in Sweden from the other month and it’s also great that it’s so close to home, so we’re going to have plenty family and friends coming out to watch us play,” she said.
Both Scotland teams will be joined by Olympians as their fifth players with Jen Dodds, who had just won a gold medal this time last year, returning to the full version of the game after a season spent focusing on Mixed Doubles, while 2018 Olympian Kyle Waddell continues in the role after winning gold in the European Championship with Team Mouat in November.
Following the departure of British Curling’s Olympic Head Coach David Murdoch, additional support is also being provided in the backroom teams, with Greg Drummond accompanying Morrison’s Team Coach Nancy Smith at the women’s event, while Ross Paterson will work with Mouat’s Team Coach Michael Goodfellow at the men’s event.
The LGT World Women’s Curling Championships will take place from March 18-26, while the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship takes place from April 1-9. 
Please click here for more information on LGT World Women’s Curling Championships.
Please click here for more information on BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championships.
Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Michael Goodfellow (Team Coach)
Ross Paterson (Coach)
Nigel Holl (Team Leader)
Team Morrison
Rebecca Morrison
Gina Aitken
Sophie Sinclair
Sophie Jackson
Jen Dodds (alternate)
Nancy Smith (Team Coach)
Greg Drummond (Coach)
Nigel Holl (Team Leader)
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Images: WCF Celine Stucki & Ansis Ventins, Jayne Stirling - Scottish Curling
