On the day he celebrated his 31st birthday, Bruce Mouat added Stirling Mixed Doubles Invitational victory to the Euro Super Series title he and his team successfully defended just three days earlier as he and Jen Dodds defeated world number two ranked Australians Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt in the final at the National Curling Academy.
Playing on home ice, the skip of the men’s World Champions demonstrated no concern for superstition as he racked up his 13th win in 13 matches over seven days of competition against high class fields packed with prospective opponents at next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina. 
Having dominated proceedings in the semi-final earlier in the day against Dodds’ 2022 Olympic gold medal winning teammate Hailey Duff and Ross Whyte as they ran out 8-1 winners, they carried that form into the final, scoring a three at the opening end to establish immediate control.
In a battle of two of the top three pairs in the mixed doubles world rankings, Gill and Hewitt managed to stay in touch until the seventh end, but Dodds and Mouat then opted to take their powerplay and fully capitalised on it to score a four which wrapped up a 10-4 victory over opponents they had also beaten in the round-robin stages.
“It was a really good seven days of curling and I enjoyed competing in the NCA again and getting a lot of good competition against tough opposition and playing a lot of the Olympic teams we will play in men’s and mixed doubles so we’re very happy with both results,” said Mouat.
“It’s a great field to have at the mixed doubles event here with world number one and two here and this early in the season to be able to focus on things we want to work on leading up to the Olympics, but all in all a really good week and we are full of confidence and happy to build on this in our next event.”
That will not be for a few weeks when they contest an event being staged by Mouat’s Swiss rival Yannick Schwaller and his wife Briar who were in the field in Stirling this week, while Mouat is also missing out on the first of his men’s teams competitions in Canada this season, but he will continue to work hard on his game. 
“I am not going to the Shorty Jenkins with my team so Jen and I will be able to do more mixed doubles practice, so looking forward to keeping the training up in both disciplines and trying to juggle that but we always enjoy playing both and wouldn’t change it,” he said, outlining his forthcoming plans.
“We are going to Geneva in the middle of October for a similar type of mixed doubles event to this one that Yannick and Briar have organised, so we will go there and then fly to another Grand Slam in Tahoe.”
In spite of having plenty to celebrate, Mouat was treating his big day with minimal fuss.
“I am very lucky to have such a good baker in my house and it was lovely to have a small slice of carrot cake which is my favourite before the final and I am going to have more of it now,” he said.
“It is the same as every other day, though.
“I have had 31 of them so I don’t treat it as my special day, and I have competed at a previous ESS event on my birthday, so I don’t think I should treat it as any different because why would you?”
Teammate Dodds was, however, pleased to have contributed to making the day a bit more special than most.
“It feels great to lift this title,” she said.
“These couple of days were exactly what we wanted at the start of the season.
“We wanted high level opposition consistently throughout the event and we won, so I feel like I have contributed to his birthday present in a way and it should be nice for him to have that double celebration tonight.”
Results on Curling Zone
British Curling teams:
Team Dodds/Mouat 
Jen Dodds
Bruce Mouat
Team Henderson/Hardie
Fay Henderson
Grant Hardie
Team Duff/Whyte
Hailey Duff
Ross Whyte
Team Jackson/CWaddell
Sophie Jackson
Craig Waddell
Team Watt/Waddell
Laura Watt
Kyle Waddell
Team Morrison/Lammie
Rebecca Morrison
Bobby Lammie