Reigning Scottish, European and World Champions Team Mouat have been selected to represent Scotland at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2023 at Curl Aberdeen next month (18-25 November).
Having won gold every time they have competed in the Euros, this event provides them with their first opportunity to play in front of a home crowd after Covid denied them that chance back in 2020 when the LGT World Men’s Curling Champs was cancelled.
However, with Joel Retornaz’s Italians heading into the event on the back of winning the first Grand Slam of the season earlier this month and Sweden’s six-time World champions Team Edin in the field, they know they will have to be at their very best if they are to make a successful defence.
“Going in as European and World Champs will be quite exciting, as we have never had both titles going into the Euros before, so we are very excited to see what we can do and with it being hosted at Aberdeen it should be pretty special,” skip Mouat said of his team’s pursuit of a fourth European title in four attempts.
“We know that it is very tough to win European Championships and especially at the moment given the form of the European teams, the Italians especially and the Swedes and the Swiss and the Norwegians, literally the list just goes on and they are all performing very well so it is going to be tough.
“Our last three outings at the event have been tough, but we think this year will be the hardest one to win with four rinks in the line-up in the top seven or eight in the world so that will be incredibly tough.
“However If we perform well, as we have in previous years at the event then we know we will be pretty close to winning again.
“The very exciting part of this is that the team and I have never experienced an event like this on home ice.
“Individually we have with other teams and I was at Curl Aberdeen for the Mixed Doubles where I won my first World title with Jen Dodds, so to have this opportunity to compete with the team at a home championships is very exciting.
“We were obviously very disappointed when Covid wiped out the World Champs and the whole schedule in 2020 when we were less than four weeks from competing in Glasgow. So this time, all things going well we can soak up the atmosphere and all that excitement that comes with playing in front of a home crowd.”
While expectation has the potential to bring additional pressure, Mouat sees playing on home ice as beneficial.
“We will try and utilise all of the advantages that we get not only from having the crowd on our side, but also having experience of that ice hall,” he said.
“European Championships are typically hosted on arena ice and no team has that advantage of playing in the venue beforehand, so this time a lot of the teams will have played in Aberdeen but not in a Championship environment, so I will use that experience from the Mixed Doubles in 2021 and hopefully that will push us on to have a great performance in the same venue.”
Mouat’s selection comes at a time of intensifying domestic competition, too and it is telling that, for all their success over the past 12 months, the World champion skip – whose team will once again be supported by the highly experienced 2018 Olympian Kyle Waddell as their alternate - did not see their selection as automatic.
“We have some of the best teams in the world in our own country,” he observed.
“It is great to have that here in Scotland pushing us forward all the time, playing against Ross Whyte, James Craik, Cameron Bryce and Kyle Waddell, so we will use that competition we have on domestic ice to further ourselves and it certainly does not hinder us knowing we have to play well every time we step on the ice at home.
“We always try to use that as an advantage. It is obviously tense around selection, but we started the season well and we knew it would be tight and the biggest thing for me was to get this chance to play in a home Championships.
“I didn’t want to miss out on that again, so to have this opportunity and to be surrounded by family and friends will be very special.
“It will be amazing to be at a Euros with Team Morrison again and to have Jen there too and hopefully like last year, we can all come away with medals again.
“On the British Curling programme, we train full time at the National Curling Academy to prepare for and to perform well at Championships like these and that will put us in good stead for the challenge ahead for both teams.”
Scotland Men:
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Alternate: Kyle Waddell
Coach: Michael Goodfellow
Schedule
Team competing are: Czechia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkiye.
Images: WCF/Ansis Ventins & Celine Stucki
