Team Mouat’s title defence may have come up just short at The Masters last weekend, but their skip sees their overall performance in their latest Grand Slam of Curling outing as further evidence of excellent form as they look towards the New Year. 
Last season’s Pinty’s Cup winners’ run of success in the host city of Oakville has been such over the past five years that locals were joking that it should be renamed Mouatville as they saw off Canada’s finest to reach the final of yet another Grand Slam event.
However, at an event which strengthened the impression of a power shift across the Atlantic with six European teams reaching the quarter-finals and three getting to the semis ahead of the final, Mouat’s men suffered a rare defeat to Joel Retornaz’s inspired Italian team, whom they had beaten in the semi-finals at last month’s European Championships on their way to lifting that title for a third time in three attempts.
“It felt like we had a really good week at The Masters and we really hoped to have won that final,” said Mouat.
“It just felt like we weren’t getting any of the rubs or the angles set up, so I had some tough shots to play and only a few of them were coming off, so it was a wee bit frustrating.
“Things just didn’t go our way, but the event went really well for us. We felt like we were playing some really good curling. 
“We had a little slip up in the qualifying stages against Matt Dunstone, but generally it felt like we were the better team in the games, so I’m really proud of how we came off the back off the Euros and continued to perform very well.”
Before this year’s Olympic finalists get back into action at next month’s Perth Masters where they will again be defending the title, though, Mouat’s focus will be on the discipline in which he made his Games debut.
Heading into the year as reigning world champions Mouat and Olympic women’s gold medallist Jen Dodds suffered a succession of disappointments in the Mixed Doubles arena when they were beaten in that Olympic semi-final and the bronze medal game, before missing out on the chance to defend their world title when they lost out to Eve Muirhead and Bobby Lammie at the Scottish Championships.
In bidding to bounce back from that, the lifelong friends set the tone for the 2022/23 season by winning the first Mixed Doubles Grand Slam event back in September, then reaching the semi-finals of their second at the recent Winnipeg Open.
They now head into another in Brantford, Ontario this week and will then head to Gothenburg on Boxing Day where they will face another strong field in the final event of the year. 
“We’re obviously looking to finish off this year on a high,” said Mouat.
“We’ve got two more events before the end of the year in two very strong fields, so we’ll look to play well and hopefully we can come away with some more successes.”
Dodds has stepped back from the women’s game to concentrate on mixed doubles this season and she felt she managed to put in some useful work between tournaments, while Mouat’s men were competing in Oakville last week.
“It’s been good,” she said.
“I’ve been fortunate to be in Oakville for my training, so was able to watch some of the Slam games between training.
“It’s been great being back around the Slams, watching some great curling and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in while and training has been going well.
“I was able to get ice at the Oakville Curling Club and was able to work on some things I had identified from the Winnipeg event.
“Now we’ve had a couple of sessions back together in Brantford we’re looking forward to getting going again on Thursday.”
They start the triple knockout competition against Ontario locals Lauren Wasylkiw and Shane Konings at the event which takes place from Thursday to Sunday (15-18 December).
Images: @photovagrant and Team GB/David Pearce.
