Having made a major breakthrough on the ice last season, half of Scotland’s world number five ranked Team Whyte head into the 2025-26 campaign looking to cope with major lifestyle changes as well as their new status as Grand Slam Champions.
Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle achieved one of their major ambitions in January when they claimed the Masters title, setting up a Scottish clean sweep of the five Grand Slam titles that was duly completed when compatriots Team Mouat won their fourth of the season at the Players Championship a few weeks later. 
However, they have experienced further highs since the season ended with half the team becoming fathers for the first time, vice skip Brydone and his partner Clancy Grandy’s daughter Brooke Elizabeth having been born on May 27, while lead Kyle and his partner Holly Docherty’s son Noah Tommy was born on July 1.
“It’s obviously been a bit different to any other pre-season,” Brydone admitted, ahead of their first competitive outing of the season at this week’s Baden Masters (Aug 14-17).
“I have had a little bit more time to adjust than Euan, who is about five weeks behind where myself and Clancy are, but it has been a learning curve.”
Since Grandy was a leading Canadian curler in her own right before joining British Curling as a coach set-up two years ago, she and Brydone are relatively well placed to address the logistical challenges they know they will confront as they combine domestic priorities with life on the road in a sport that involves regular trans-Atlantic travel.
“We know there will be some learnings for the first couple of competitions, but it will be interesting and we are excited to get started,” said Brydone.
“In our planning we have tried to think of every scenario possible and we have tried to pick the plan we think will work the best.
“Even then I am sure we will have to make adjustments, but it will rely on lots of open and honest conversations within the team.
“The support team behind every high performance team is important and this is now really crucial.
“We are lucky in that we have a lot of support both sides of the pond for when I am competing and Clancy is working with the team that she coaches, so it is going to be a lot of hard work not just for ourselves but for family and friends too but everyone is excited to make this work.
“Brooke will be travelling with us and I am sure we will have Noah making some trips too, maybe at one of the Slams. So there are a lot of positives and we will make things work the best we can as Clancy loves working for British Curling and I love playing for British Curling and Team Whyte. so long may that continue.
“Thankfully Brooke has been a star and has been sleeping through the night so I am really hoping that will continue when we head out to Canada as that will be ideal, but we will have to wait and see.”
The new season begins full of promise for Team Whyte, since they will be favourites to represent Scotland at the World Men’s Championships this season due to Team Mouat’s Olympic commitments, while a glitzy new competition Rock League is set to get underway in Canada at the end of the season, aiming to build on the sport’s raised profile following the Winter Olympics. 
With that in mind, lifelong curler Brydone joked that he now has extra incentive to play a part in helping transform the image of the sport.
“Curling is obviously going to play a big part in Brooke’s life as it has with mine and Clancy’s, so hopefully we can build the sport up enough so she can make a decent living when she gets to this stage,” he laughed.
“Seriously though, I will keep doing what I am doing and she can choose her own direction when she is old enough, but she could be the earliest signing ever for Rock League!”
For this first generation of full-time curlers, opportunities are meanwhile growing and Team Whyte are eager to put themselves in the best position to take advantage.
“We have been fighting to get to a major championships as a team and this is the first real opportunity to make this happen this year and we hope to get to the Worlds,” said Brydone.
“From there it is a new cycle and we will have to wait and see what that holds, because in this cycle there has been a massive shift with European teams getting very strong as well as the Asian teams.
“The competitiveness between ourselves and Team Mouat is also testament to what we are doing here in Scotland and what we have done last season.
“Hopefully those guys will go out and have a great Olympics and we are pushing each other every single day here in the NCA (National Curling Academy).
“Any one of us could go to a championship and achieve really well, it is just that they have slightly iced us so far but that doesn’t mean it will be that way forever.
“So, being such a tight knit unit and the experience we have on Tour we will manage the changes and it wasn’t our intention to be trailblazers this season as a British Curling team testing out the system with two babies, but if that is what we are then that is great.
“I am Incredibly proud of Clancy, taking all of this in her stride as a first time mum and full time British Curling coach taking on this season with Brooke and supporting me too.
“If we can show that this is possible then that is great for the sport and means people can play longer and play to their potential.”
The level of support the new dads have had from throughout the organisation has meanwhile demonstrated the strength of the British Curling family, as Kyle confirmed.
““We just couldn’t do this without having amazing partners like Holly and Clancy, but we have also had so much support from our coaches Al (Scott) and Greg (Drummond) helping us to find the right balance just now,” he said.
“We couldn’t really have asked for better help to be honest and Holly has taken the brunt of sleepless nights. We have a good routine and are balancing things so far.
“Our goals as a team are the same, we are still aiming for that top spot.
“We always have that competitive edge and always want to be the best team we can be, so it might be more challenging this year, when you are saying goodbye to head away to compete, but it will always be nice coming home and being back at training and around family.”
Team Whyte open the season this weekend with the added challenge of a line up change as Craig Waddell stands in for McFadzean who has an injury niggle, but in spite of that, Kyle goes into the event believing that the Scottish teams have a head start on the field.
“I feel we get a jump on every other team in the world pretty much because of our training facility which puts us in a really good spot going into these early events, so we will look to get out of the gates the best we can and show we are here to compete,” he said.
Link to Baden results
Watch LIVE streamed games on WCT TV YouTube.
British Curling teams:
Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Team Whyte
Ross Whyte
Robin Brydone
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle
Team Waddell
Kyle Waddell
Mark Watt
Angus Bryce
Blair Haswell
Team Carson
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
