Team Mouat will attempt to make curling history at the BKT World Men’s Championship in Saskatchewan by becoming the first team in the history of the event to come through the quarter-final round and claim the title after a drama laden day saw them knock out both defending champions Sweden and hosts Canada.
Scotland’s 2023 World champions and current World number one ranked quartet knew they would have to do things the hard way if they were to get through the first day of knockout play, since they would start without the hammer and last stone advantage in every game, having qualified only in fifth place in the round-robin standings. 
The quarter-final meeting with Sweden’s Team Edin, their long-standing rivals whom they have faced in Olympic, World and European Championship finals, provided something of a template for what was to come against Canada as they turned around that hammer advantage early in the match and maintained the upper hand to the end in winning 8-7.
That took them into a showdown with the Canadians who, stoked by fervent home support in Moose Jaw’s Temple Gardens Centre, had qualified directly into the semi-finals with the best round-robin record of the week, losing just one of their 11 matches.
However, Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan also had plenty of reason to be confident as the team that had inflicted that solitary defeat on Canada, while their win in that match had been their 10th in 11 meetings with various teams led by Canadian skip Brad Jacobs down the years.
They made an immediate statement when they forced the Canadians to one at the opening end, but made their real declaration of intent at the second end where, faced with an uninviting situation with a Canadian stone on the button and lots of clutter in front of the house, Hardie worked out the angles to send stones in all directions.
When the dust settled, three Scottish stones were in the house, setting up an opportunity for a multiple score and when Jacobs managed to remove just one stone with an attempted double takeout on his final delivery of the end, Mouat took the chance to score his two.
In front for the first time, the Scots were never to be headed again, forcing Jacobs to take another one at the next, blanking the fourth and fifth ends, then scoring two at the sixth to move 4-2 ahead.
Jacobs finally managed to get the crowd involved with a brilliantly precise double takeout to score two and level things up again at the seventh and it looked as if the momentum might have shifted Canada’s way when they forced Scotland to take one at the eighth.
A blanked ninth saw the Canadians retain last stone advantage down the last and it was another keenly contested end with every shot made exactly as called until home team vice skip Marc Kennedy failed to execute an attempted takeout with the 12th stone of the end.
That gave Mouat the chance to apply pressure with a draw to the front of the four foot, but Jacobs responded well, shifting Scottish stones around and putting his stone into shot position.
Mouat was up to the task once more, however, removing that stone and, crucially, rolling his shooter frozen on top of another Scottish stone, leaving Jacobs with a high tariff angled raise which he gallantly attempted, only to leave two Scottish stones counting.
“I’m very proud of our performance today,” said Mouat, following that 7-4 victory.
“It was really important to flip the hammer early and getting the force, the two and then the force again really set the tone for the game.
“I’m just really happy with how we went about things after a bit of a roller-coaster of a week.”
Having set all sorts of records as the most successful non-Canadian team in the history of Grand Slam of Curling events, as well as winning their World title on Canadian ice two years ago, the Scots were fully ready for what they encountered in the packed arena.
“We really enjoyed the crowd today,” said Mouat.
“It was just an incredible atmosphere and it never gets old getting to play in this sort of arena.
“It’s hard to explain exactly what it means to us, but my younger self would be very proud of these situations that we’re now in.”
Having previously faced Switzerland in a European Championship final and on many other occasions down the years, they now face opponents for whom they have huge respect, but who are playing in their first global final as a team.
“We know the Swiss boys very well and we know they’re an extremely strong team, so we’re going to have to play just as well as we did today to hopefully get the win,” said Scotland’s skip.
The final, which will yet again see Scotland start without last stone advantage, takes place at 10pm (BST) on Sunday April 7 and can be watched on The Curling Channel and the BBC Sport website, app and BBC iPlayer.
Earlier in the day, Canada will face China in the bronze medal match.
Watch games LIVE on The Curling Channel. 
Scotland Team
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Michael Goodfellow (Team Coach)
Greg Drummond (Olympic Head Coach)
Please click here for draw and results
Schedule and results:
Day One
Sunday 30 March
Scotland – Austria 12-2
Day Two
Scotland – Japan 9-6
Monday 31 March
Scotland – Korea 9-3
Day Three
Monday 31 March
Scotland – Canada 6-5(EE)
Tuesday 1 April
Scotland – Czechia 8-2
Day Four
Scotland – Italy 9-7
Day Five
Wednesday 2 April
Scotland – Switzerland 7-11
Scotland – Norway 8-4
Day Six
Thursday 3 April
Scotland – Sweden 4-10
Scotland – USA 8-6
Day Seven
Friday 4 April
Scotland – Germany 6-1
Saturday 5 April
Scotland – China 2-9
Day Eight
Saturday 5 April
Qualification games*
Scotland – Sweden 8-7
Norway – China 7-8 (EE)
Semi Final games*-10pm
Scotland - Canada 7-4
Switzerland – China 7-3
Day Nine
Sunday 6 April
Bronze medal game-4pm
Canada - China
Gold medal game*-10pm
Scotland - Switzerland
*Games available on the BBC iPlayer
Images: Anil Mungal/British Curling
