After leading his side through the greatest season in the history of Grand Slam Curling, Bruce Mouat is returning to the ranks as Olympic gold medallist Jen Dodds calls the shots for Scotland when the World Mixed Doubles Championship (April 26 – May 3) gets underway in Canada this weekend.
While Dodds will officially be listed as leading the combination, the lifelong curling friends have formed the closest of partnerships on the ice and the World Champion and World number one men’s skip will take his full share of responsibility as they look to build on previous success. 
The 2021 World Mixed Doubles Champions have reached the finals of all three international events they have entered together this season, winning two of them and are both coming off memorable campaigns.
As well as reclaiming their World title earlier this month, Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan became the first team in history to win four of the five Canadian Grand Slam tournaments in the same season, while Dodds completed a full set of European Championship medals when she claimed bronze alongside Rebecca Morrison, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson.
However, their mindset is to focus on this season’s remaining major goal, rather than reflect on what has already been achieved, as Mouat explained.
“I think the wins will probably soak in when I get home and I am able to celebrate with family and friends and obviously I love the fact that we have achieved these things, but I still feel like we have a job to do here and that’s the main aim here at the minute,” he said.
Team Mouat came through the most intense of schedules at the beginning of April with nine days of World Championship action followed immediately by a week doing battle with the other 11 top teams in the sport as they registered the last of those Grand Slam successes at the AMJ Players Championship with the high profile Battle of the Sexes, which they also won against Rachel Homan’s Women’s World Champions, sandwiched in between. 
No sooner had he recovered from that than it was back to work with Dodds and their mixed doubles coach Ross Paterson because they know they cannot rest on any laurels as they prepare to face the best in the sport in a very different discipline.
“I had some days off after the Players Championships and we managed to hang out in Oakville for a while and managed to get some rest and recovery there before Jen and Ross came out and we started practising again,” he said.
“I think the field that we are seeing now coming into this championship is probably the strongest I have ever seen and potentially played against so it should be a good challenge.
“We love mixed doubles and we enjoy playing together so looking forward to playing some really tough teams this week and hopefully we can match up to them.”
For Dodds, whose passion for mixed doubles is such that she briefly took time out of the team game after winning Olympic gold in 2022 to focus on working with Mouat, the change has felt as good as a rest.
“I was pretty tired after the Women’s Worlds and I think everyone feels like that after a major championships so I took a week off to recover and I have had just over two weeks of solid training at the National Curling Academy which was good to tighten things up technically and get in my head the mixed doubles tactics again,” she said. 
“It is obviously great to get back to another World Mixed Doubles and I love playing this discipline and playing with Bruce as well as we have such a laugh together when we do play.
“He has had a very hectic schedule so in between the Women’s Worlds and his Worlds and Players I don’t think we saw each other for five weeks so it was nice to get to Toronto and get a good week’s worth of training in and we are just looking forward to get going.”
The Scottish pair head into the event charged with securing the qualifying points necessary for Team GB to gain pre-qualification in the mixed doubles discipline at next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina and like the men and women, avoid the Olympic Qualifying Event later this year.
However, they are too experienced to make the mistake of being distracted by focusing on outcomes and they know they can rely on one another to reinforce the right things.
“We would love to secure Team GB that spot at the Olympics, but it is not main priority just now, it’s about going in and sticking to the processes, still those clichés of sticking to one game at a time and then all the wins will hopefully come,” said Dodds.
“Bruce and I have a great friendship and I think that works well in our team.
“We know we can support each other and be honest at the same time.
“I think that is really important in these pressurised situations, we know nothing is said negatively, it’s all to improve the team and we all have the same goal including the coaches that are here this week and that is to do the best we can and that is hopefully to qualify Team GB a spot and get into the play offs and then who knows from there.”
Schedule:
Saturday 26 April
Session 1- 1pm (BST)
Scotland – Netherlands
Session 3 – 10pm (BST)
Scotland – China
Sunday 27 April
Session 5 – 6pm (BST)
Scotland – DenmarK
Monday 28 April
Session 7 -2pm (BST)
Scotland – Finland
Session 9 – 10pm (BST)
Scotland – Korea
Tuesday 29 April
Session 11 – 6pm (BST)
Scotland – Italy
Wednesday 30 April
Session 13 – 2pm (BST)
Scotland – Sweden
Session 15 10pm (BST)
Scotland – Germany
Thursday 1 May
Session 17- 6pm (BST)
Scotland – Canada
Friday 2 May
2pm - Qualification Games
10pm - Relegation Games
10pm - Semi Finals
Saturday 3 May
1.30pm - Bronze Medal Game
6.00pm - Gold Medal Game
Watch streamed games on The Curling Channel
Team Scotland
Jen Dodds
Bruce Mouat
Ross Paterson – Team Coach
Greg Drummond – Olympic Head Coach
Images: Team GB/David Pearce
