Having revelled in spending the past year calling themselves champions of the World, Scotland’s Team Mouat are ready to defend their title as they compete for it on this side of the Atlantic for the first time.
Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan completed a full set of LGT World Men’s Curling Championship medals last year when they achieved a career goal in winning the title in Ottawa, having previously claimed silver in Calgary and bronze on their debut in the event in Las Vegas in 2018.
Their only other World Championship appearance having been in Alberta in 2019, this year’s relatively rare staging of the competition on European ice in Schaffhausen, Switzerland consequently represents a new experience with less of an adjustment required to their body clocks as they finalise their preparations.
“It’s exciting for all of us to play in Switzerland at a World Championship,” said their skip, pointing out that only lead Hammy McMillan, who competed in Basel in 2016 the year before joining Team Mouat, has previously contested a World Championships on this side of the pond. 
“Apart from Hammy it’s the first time any of us have got to play in a men’s World Championship in Europe, so we’re very excited to see what that’s like.”
Having defended their European title earlier this season - their fourth victory at that Championship in four appearances - they have begun 2024 in fine form, winning three of four high class events that they have entered, albeit the one they missed out on was a painful one as they suffered their first failure to win the Scottish Championships since 2017.
“2024 has been a mixed bag of emotions really with three really good events that we’ve managed to win and it’s really exciting to head into another World Championship just on the back of another World Curling Tour event win in Aberdeen,” said Mouat.
They are consequently all the more determined to hold onto their most prized title of all.
“The past year’s been really nice,” said the skip.
“Describing ourselves as World Champions was something we always wanted to achieve, so over the last year that’s been very satisfying and we’re very happy with the way we’ve represented ourselves as World Champions and we’re excited to get the chance to retain the title.”
Their main rivals for the title are very familiar, with Italy’s world number one ranked Team Retornaz, Sweden’s six-time former World Champions Team Edin, last year’s beaten finalists, led by the last Canadian to skip a World Championship winning team in Brad Gushue and Switzerland’s perennial contenders Team Schwaller all in the line-up. 
Mouat consequently knows exactly what his team are up against and while they can take confidence from having won the most recent of the prestigious Grand Slam events this season in accruing a total of six titles this season, they also know the stakes are heightened with Olympic qualifying points also up for grabs.
“We’ve not seen a lot of the teams for a while now, since we won the Grand Slam back in January, but we’re sure a lot of them have been taking the last couple of months to play their Nationals and train up for the World Championships, similar to what we’ve done,” he observed.
“Obviously this is a big Worlds to be a part of when it’s the first year of Olympic qualification points and a lot of teams are going to be trying really hard to get into the top six or seven, depending on where Italy finish as host nation.
“We’re looking forward to playing them all again and seeing what we can do towards the end of the week.”
The round-robin competition begins on March 30, with the play-offs getting underway on April 6 and the medal matches taking place on April 7.
Please click here for LIVE streaming of games on The Curling Channel.
Selected games are also available on the BBC iPlayer, BBC Scotland website and app.
31/03/2024
Scotland v Canada
Scotland v Italy
02/04/2024
Scotland v Germany
03/04/2024
Scotland v Japan
05/04/2024
Scotland v Sweden
Please click here for more event information and results.
Scotland Team
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Team Coach Michael Goodfellow
Olympic Head Coach Greg Drummond
Schedule (GMT/BST) & Results
Saturday 30 March
Session 1 -13.00
Scotland – Korea
Session 2 – 18.00
Scotland – USA
Sunday 31 March
Session 4 – 13.00
Scotland – Canada
Session 5 – 18.00
Scotland - Italy
Monday 1 April
Session 7 – 13.00
Scotland – New Zealand
Tuesday 2 April
Session 10 – 13.00
Scotland –Germany
Wednesday 3 April
Session 12 – 08.00
Scotland – Czechia
Session 14- 18.00
Scotland –Japan
Thursday 4 April
Session 15 – 08.00
Scotland –Netherlands
Session 17 – 18.00
Scotland - Switzerland
Friday 5 April
Session 18 – 08.00
Scotland –Norway
Session 20-18.00
Scotland –Sweden
Saturday 6 April
09.00
Qualification
15.00
Semi Finals
Sunday 7 April
09.00
Bronze Medal Game
14.00
Gold Medal Game
Images: WCF
