Five British Curling teams are in Canada looking to build on the success the programme has already enjoyed on that side of the Atlantic this season as they contest The Players Open which gets underway tomorrow in Dundas, Ontario (12-15 October).
Teams Mouat and Whyte claimed tournament wins in Canada on their previous visit and are joined in the draw for the men’s event by Team Waddell, who are on their first trans-Atlantic excursion this season, as are fellow Scots Team Bryce. 
The women’s event will meanwhile feature Team Morrison, who reached two finals and a semi-final in the three events they have contested in Canada and Team Henderson, who narrowly missed out on reaching the play-offs at the Stu Sells Tankard in Ontario last weekend.
The world class field assembled for The Players Open will provide the perfect test immediately ahead of the first Grand Slam of the season and Mouat’s men are aiming to protect their world number one status ahead of the first of those events which takes place next week.
The reigning world champions’ pursuit of perfection includes examining every possible way of improving on their achievements of recent years and for their second Bobby Lammie, already considered one of the finest sweepers in the global game that has included a return to academic study.
“For our team, we have reached a point where we are looking for small details now and small improvements, so by starting this sports nutrition course I felt I was able to help out in a way that will help add that 1% to our performances and be the best full package that we can be,” said Lammie.
“The Institute of Performance Nutrition (IOPN) Diploma is run by our consultant nutritionist that started working with our programme this year, who run the world recognised diploma with a team of staff, so it is a year-long course.
“It involves a lot of detail and is time consuming in terms of workload, but also exciting and in-depth, so once I have completed the course I will be a qualified sports nutritionist and I have enjoyed getting stuck into it.
“These are easy changes to make but not everyone has the information required to make the right choices, so having an understanding of that is important and to track and implement that could be enough to make that extra difference on the ice.
“When we are travelling a lot, staying at hotels and having to eat out making those decisions when time and options are limited will help us to fuel our bodies in the best way possible when we are in competition.
“Nutrition is one factor that goes towards competition performance, but knowing you have made the right decisions even before competition has even started is one less thing to worry about and one extra thing off your mind, so it adds to our confidence knowing that we are doing things right.”
Lammie, his skip Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan, open their account at The Players Open against Montreal’s Team Asselin, who knocked them out of last month’s Shorty Jenkins Classic, while the winners of that event, Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle, face a high-powered first tie against Italy’s Team Retornaz, ranked four places above them at world no.4.
Kyle and Craig Waddell, Mark Taylor and Gavin Barr begin their campaign against Switzerland’s Team Hoesli and Cammy Bryce, Duncan Menzies, Luke Carson and Robin McCall start out against a local quartet skipped by Mark Kean.
In the women’s event Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson once again start against Switzerland’s four-time world champions Team Tirinzoni, having run them close in both their opening match and the semi-final at the Shorty Jenkins, while Fay Henderson, Hailey Duff, Amy MacDonald and Katie McMillan meet local Ontario line-up in Team Duncan.
