World number one ranked Team Mouat will get the chance to maintain their 100 per cent record at the Le Gruyere AOP European Championships as they bid for a fifth title in five visits to the event when they represent Scotland in Finland next month (November 16-23).
Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan head to Lohja’s Kiskallio Sports Centre having dominated the early part of the season, becoming the first Scots to win The Baden Masters, then defending the Euro Super Series title on home ice, before winning the first Grand Slam of the season in Canada at The Hearing Life Tour Challenge. 
They consequently feel well placed to continue their extraordinary run at the European Championships as they defend the title they have won all four times that they have been selected as Scotland’s representatives since their first attempt in 2018.
“This event has treated us well in the past and we are hoping for similar success this time around and none of us have been to Finland before so we are quite excited to venture to a new country and curl there and hoping to go for number five which would be pretty spectacular for ourselves,” said skip Mouat.
“We are enjoying the recent form that we have been on and we have worked really hard over the last three months to get us to this spot, so we are living in the moment and trying to maintain and remain number one in the world.
“That is no easy task and we need to keep those performances coming to hopefully solidify that spot and keep it for as long as we can.
“We always enjoy the competition that comes on the back of being the team that is on form so we are trying to maintain that as long as we can and hopefully the Europeans will go as well as we hope to and we can then really build momentum into the second half of this season.”
As they move into championship mode their Scotland line-up is once again supplemented by fellow Olympian Kyle Waddell who travels with them as their alternate.
“Kyle has always been a great asset to the team and we have had a lot of success with him,” said Mouat.
“He is one of those people that works hard for the team and we have every confidence that he is able to fill in for any of us if we ever need him to and also just a really good guy to have around, so we really enjoy having him as part of our squad.”
Three of their line-up – Mouat, Hardie and Lammie –spent last week playing against one another after a change of discipline, taking part in two international mixed doubles events in Switzerland, but they again demonstrated how well they are performing with Mouat winning in Gstaad with 2021 World Championship winning partner Jen Dodds, before 2022 World Champion Lammie and Rebecca Morrison beat them in the final in Bern.
“Mixed Doubles last week was a lot of fun, a change of pace and a different dynamic compared to the men’s team having to take more responsibility on the sweeping side of things,” said the skip.
“I really enjoyed myself and it was nice to get to both finals with Jen.
“We didn’t have our best season on the mixed doubles side of things last year so coming off what was obviously a bit of a disappointment we worked really hard to try and get back to some sort of form and I think that showed with two really high class fields and playing really well.
“I don’t think playing mixed doubles will impact on our team preparation because at the end of the day it was still curling.
“It wasn’t like we were playing a different sport it is just a different format of the same one and we are really excited to get back into the four person game and try and find that form that we found in the early months of this season.”
Morrison and Dodds will meanwhile be working together again at the Europeans along with Sophie Jackson and Sophie Sinclair and they will look to draw on those performances in Switzerland where current Scottish Mixed Doubles Champion Jackson and her partner Duncan McFadzean also reached the semi-finals of both events.
“Obviously three of us got to the semi finals and Jen won the event in our first mixed doubles event and we won the second title so it is clear that we are all paying well and throwing well and that gives us a lot of confidence,” said skip Morrison.
“It just shows that even when we are separated we can still deliver and when we come back together and rejoin as a team next week hopefully we can do the same thing and continue to play as well as we have done.”
Morrison believes her team can build on past experience as well as that current form as they head to Finland. 
“We have been Scotland’s representatives at the Europeans twice before and in our first year got a bronze and last year we finished fifth and we weren’t very far away last season from meeting some goals that we had when we just missed qualifying for play-offs,” she said.
“However, I am sure after a year’s more experience we are ready to come back and try again to meet our goals and get into those play-off games and of course we would like to go all the way at this year’s championships.”
She also noted that the two Scottish teams have wider responsibilities, since the Europeans double as a qualifying event for this season’s World Championships, which in turn represent the last chance to pre-qualify Team GB for the Winter Olympics in 2026.
“It is obviously really important this year that we qualify Scotland for the World Championships in March seeing as it is the last year that you can collect points for the Olympics, so we know we have a job to do,” said Morrison.
“The main goal of this championship is obviously to qualify your country for the Worlds because whoever is going there off to Korea in March has another big job to do for sure and we want to meet our goals this season rather than have to go into next season at the qualifying event.” 
Fay Henderson who skipped her team to victory at the Scottish Championships earlier this year will be joining Team Scotland’s women as their alternate.
The Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2024 hosted at the Kisakallio Sports Institute, Lohja, Finland runs from Saturday 16 – Saturday 23 November 2024.
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Team Scotland line-ups:
Scotland Men
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Scotland Women
Rebecca Morrison
Jen Dodds
Sophie Sinclair
Sophie Jackson
Fay Henderson (alternate)
Images: World Curling
