After his team successfully defended their European Championship men’s title, Bruce Mouat has headed across the Atlantic for a pressure-packed month of action that he hopes will set him up for a double assault on domestic and global glory in the New Year.
No sooner had Mouat got home from winning their third European title in three visits to the event last weekend than he was packing his bags again, preparing to head for Canada for a run of events in the most lucrative arena in the sport. 
He will be joined there later in December by Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan, but his first priority is teaming up once again with Olympic gold medallist Jen Dodds as they return to mixed doubles action at the Winnipeg Open Mixed Doubles Super Series (1-4 December) and having won the only event they have contested this season, also a Grand Slam event in Canada, he is excited by the prospect.
“It has been quite a tight turnaround since the Euros,” said Mouat.
“I had a full day and another half day at home before I had to jump on a plane to Canada, but I feel pretty privileged that I get to travel the world and do what I love so I am very happy to be doing this.
“Jen and I haven’t played together since we won the mixed doubles slam together in September, but we have had two or three team sessions together and obviously putting in a lot of individual practice as well to hopefully get back into the groove when we step on the ice together.
“I have not done a whole lot of sweeping in the last wee while so it will be good to get back into the sweeping side and trying to judge stones and stuff, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Grand Slams represent curling competition at its toughest, since there is no restriction on the number of teams from any one nation that can take part. 
However, Mouat is partly seeing a sequence which sees two mixed doubles Slams sandwich Team Mouat’s defence of the Masters title they won last year on the way to becoming the first Scottish winners of The Pintys Cup, as the season’s leading team in Grand Slam events as an opportunity to prepare for 2023’s big targets.
“It’s going to be a bit of a long stint here in Canada, a three week trip with two of the mixed doubles Slams and another men’s Slam in Oakville, so that should be a really good end to this year,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of big competitions coming up at the turn of the year trying to win our Scottish Nationals in men’s and also Jen and me trying to win our Scottish Nationals in the mixed. All these are preparing us for those two big events.
“We’re really looking forward to trying to get the men’s title back that we won in 2020. It’s been a while since we competed in that forum, so hopefully we can play some good curling down in Dumfries.
“Jen and I also won the World Mixed Doubles in 2021 and we’d love to get back to another World Championships, so we’ve got a lot of preparation to do and this is the perfect time to be doing it.”
While their opportunities to play together have been restricted, Mouat has seen enough to believe that Dodds’ focus on mixed doubles this season, after stepping down from the women’s game, will only make them more formidable. 
“Jen’s been enjoying playing mixed doubles again this year,” he said.
“Having her focus on it has really helped her understand the tactics and I feel like we’re definitely more on the same page when it comes to tactical decisions and Jen sometimes even takes the lead, so it’s been a really good transition for her.
“I feel like she’s playing really well going by that one competition we’ve played and we’ve now got three more before we play the Scottish mixed doubles, so we’ll be using them to try to make sure we get as much from them as possible so that we can play as well as we can at the Scottish.”
Please click here for results and more details from Winnipeg Open Mixed Doubles Super Series (1-4 December).
Images: PPA/Graeme Hart and Team GB/David Pearce/Sam Mellish.
