Scotland’s Team Mouat had little time to celebrate their World Curling Championship title success before packing their bags and heading across Canada to defend one of the Grand Slam titles they won last season at the Princess Auto Players Championship in Toronto.
Skip Bruce Mouat, vice skip Grant Hardie, second Bobby Lammie, lead Hammy McMillan and their fifth player Kyle Waddell spent a joyous night with their support team, friends and family after claiming their first world title together and Scotland’s first for 14 years in the men’s event when they beat hosts Canada 9-3 in Sunday’s final in Ottawa.
However, the Players Championship - which they won last season on their way to becoming the first ever Scots to win The Pinty’s Cup as the leading performers in the season’s Grand Slams - gets underway tomorrow four hours across country and they are looking forward to the reception they will get from knowledgeable audiences in the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
“This is why we play the sport,” said Mouat.
“We absolutely love it and love competing on a world stage, so we’re definitely not going to lie down and let anyone walk over us. 
“Now we’re world champions we’re going to have a bit of a target on our backs, but we’re looking forward to that challenge as well and it should be a good week.
“I don’t know how this Slam is going to go, but it’s a great event to play in and been a pretty busy week for us already, so we’re just going to try to enjoy ourselves at the Slam.
“It’s a great atmosphere there and everyone in Toronto knows how to support curling, so we’re very excited to play in another Slam at the Mattamy Arena.”
Bringing echoes of last week’s success, they set out against Italy’s Team Retornaz, who have become very familiar opponents this season.
The Scots won both their encounters on their way to winning this season’s European Championships, before the Italians came out on top when they met in a Grand Slam final at The Masters in December.
Since then Mouat’s men won when they met in the final of The Perth Masters in early January and again in that opening fixture at the World Championships, but every match has been keenly contested and none more so than Saturday’s World Championships semi-finals, when Retornaz came within millimetres of pulling off one of the greatest shots in the sport’s history in bidding to win the match at the 10th end.
While Team Mouat then held their nerve to close that out and head on into the gold medal match, the Italians subsequently lost the bronze medal match, so are also in recovery mode ahead of the Players Championship.
“We’ve got a big start against the Italians and hopefully that can set us up on the right track,” he said.
“They’re obviously a tough team to play against, but they’ll be just as tired as us, so we’ll hopefully manage to get another win against them.”
There will be no lack of motivation to build on what they have achieved as they continue that Pinty’s Cup defence and seek to end the season ranked No.1 in the world rankings for the first time.
“We’ve achieved our biggest goal of the season, but our season’s not over, so we’re going to have to find a few more gears to keep us going for a couple of weeks and hopefully get a couple more results,” said Mouat.
Along with Team Retornaz, the new world champions are in the same qualifying pool as two leading Canadian quartets, Team Dunstone and Team Carruthers, as well as Switzerland’s World Championships Team Schwaller.
Fellow Scots Team Whyte – Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle – are also in that group and can also head into the event full of confidence having beaten their compatriots in their last competitive clash, as well as Team Retornaz in the final on their way to claiming the Aberdeen International title last month.
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Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Michael Goodfellow (Team Coach)
Team Whyte
Ross Whyte
Robin Brydone
Duncan McFadzean
Euan Kyle
Greg Drummond (Team Coach)
#curling
Image: WCF Celine Stucki
