Scotland’s historic double European Curling Championship success last weekend has proved immediately inspirational to the next generation, with both newly crowned Scottish Junior champions drawing upon the performances of Teams Mouat and Muirhead.
While those senior rinks were becoming the first Scots to claim men’s and women’s European titles on the same weekend, their British Curling colleagues Teams Craik and Henderson were battling for their own places in history at the Scottish Junior Championships and achieving their main season’s goals.
Both are now set to represent Scotland on the global stage, knowing that they are getting the best possible preparation. 
“Our teams had unbelievable success in Norway as a nation last weekend and to know that was happening when we were also on the ice rink created a really good atmosphere,” said James Craik.
“Everyone was in a positive mood and we felt that on the ice as well, everyone was cheering us on. Seeing the success Teams Mouat and Muirhead are having does give us great confidence when we’re travelling abroad, because we know we’re following the same programme as them, so if we keep doing what we’re doing, hopefully that can be us one day.
“It gives us great confidence that all the work we do in the National Curling Academy is valid and that all the gym sessions we do, the extra support that’s on offer, really does produce world class athletes as we’ve shown we have the best athletes in Europe just now. It’s great to have teams in men’s and women’s that are thriving.”
Fay Henderson echoed those sentiments, adding that their own successes in the Scottish Juniors at Curl Aberdeen reinforced their belief that they have given themselves a huge opportunity by earning places on the British Curling programme.
“To see the two Scotland teams win at the European Championships last weekend was inspirational and it shows what we can achieve as well with hard work and the support of British Curling,” she said.
“With James Craik winning as well on the boys side, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that what we’re doing is working and all the support we’ve been given has been very helpful and will help us perform on the world stage.” 
For Craik, who hails from Edzell so was playing close to home in the Granite City, it was his second victory as a skip at the Scottish Juniors. However, there had been changes to his team since they won the title in 2020, before the competition fell victim to the COVID pandemic last year, so there was still a freshness as, along with Niall Ryder who was part of that winning team two seasons ago, Scott Hyslop and Angus Bryce became Scottish champions for the first time.
“It was awesome to keep the title we won two seasons ago and still have Team Craik as the named champions, but it was a slightly different team so it was special in its own way once again,” said the 20-year-old.
“Scott and Angus winning their first was just awesome because they played great which made it really enjoyable. We’re really happy with how the week went for us. We stuck to our processes all week. The boys in front of me played fantastically all week and made my life a lot easier.
“Going through the week unbeaten shows that we really are putting in the effort and training harder than anyone else and managing to get the results made a statement out there that we are the deserved winners and the best team to represent Scotland in Sweden.”
Having claimed bronze on both his previous appearances at the World Junior Championships, with Team Whyte in 2019, then with his own team the following year, Craik is determined to improve on that and believes his team is capable of doing so.
“That was our first trial run as a team at a championships and going undefeated in our Nationals does give us a lot of confidence,” he said.
“We know we can play 10 games in a row and attack them all with the same diligence, attitude and performance standard, because our fitness is good enough.”
Dumfries’s Henderson has a different immediate challenge as she and teammates Katie McMillan, Lisa Davie and Holly Wilkie-Milne also prepare to head for Scandinavia at the start of January for the World Junior B Championships, where they will be trying to get Scotland back to the top flight.
“This was our big target for the season, so it’s amazing to achieve it and I’m really proud of my team for the way we supported each other throughout the whole week. We played really well,” said the 19-year-old skip.
“I won the mixed doubles a couple of years ago, but to win a team event is the big one that everyone wants to win. It’s something I’ve worked towards for a very long time, so it’s great to be able to tick that off.”
As well as their domestic success, they can also draw upon international tournament wins this season at the European Junior Curling Tour events in the Czech Republic and Switzerland. 
“We’re now really looking forward to going to Finland for the World Junior B Championships and hopefully we can get Scotland promoted back into the A division,” said Henderson.
“This is where our experience in Europe will be particularly helpful because we’ve played against lots of these teams before and we’ve played against quite a lot of those in the A division as well and won quite a lot of games, so I think that gives us the confidence that we can perform well on the world stage.”
Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Katie McMillan
Lisa Davie
Holly Wilkie-Milne
Team Craik
James Craik
Angus Bryce
Scott Hyslop
Niall Ryder
