After taking part in a novel concept as leading teams chose their own opponents for this week’s latest Grand Slam event in Canada, Hammy McMillan is hoping his famous curling family is set for a historic week of success in the sport.
While he is anticipating that he and teammate Grant Hardie will take some ribbing as a result, Team Mouat’s lead was delighted to discover that their younger cousin Robyn Munro had been selected to be the GB Students flag-bearer at the FISU Winter World University Games, particularly on the back of a round-robin campaign in the mixed doubles event that had seen her qualify for the semi-finals in style with fellow British Curling athlete Orrin Carson.
“Wee cousin Robyn’s a flag bearer and they finished top of the round-robin, so they’re getting on great,” McMillan said proudly. 
“Her being flag-bearer I think she’ll treasure this moment for a long time and she’ll remind Grant and me about it, so she’ll thoroughly enjoy that.”
Along with his front end partner Bobby Lammie, McMillan - the son of a World Champion skip who has also won a World title - had meanwhile represented the world number one team when the Grand Slam of Curling came up with a new approach to deciding the line-ups for this week’s WFG Masters in Guelph, Ontario.
It saw the world’s top four invited to draw the first-ever Grand Slam ‘draft’ as they took turns to select which opponents they would face in the pool stages and as McMillan explained, the innovations do not stop there, as the best performing teams will be once again forced to try to make the tricky judgement of who they would like to face come the knockout stages.
“They are trying lots of new and different ideas, so it was the first time it’s happened and to be honest we ended up more or less picking them on world rankings or potentially looking at some head to head records that we have with other teams,” he said.
“It was fun and the next interesting part of it is that after teams qualify for the quarter-finals at this week, the top four get to pick who they will play in the quarter-finals.”
Along with Bruce Mouat and Grant Hardie, the Hammy and Lammy combo go into the event seeking to become the first players to win four successive Grand Slam events, having already won the first three of the season at the Hearing Life Tour Challenge, the Co-Op Canadian Open and the Kioti National.
“It would be unprecedented and we’re looking forward to what will hopefully be a great event,” said McMillan. 
“It’s really exciting to be back out there playing in a Grand Slam.
“Everybody’s feeling good and excited about getting going again tomorrow.”
Mouat’s men have pitted themselves against Slam newcomers from Winnipeg Team McDonald, whom they will play first, then more familiar opposition in Switzerland’s Team Hoesli, who have established themselves in the world’s top 10 this season.
Thereafter come two intriguing ties, with a re-match of the 2022 Olympic final against Sweden’s Team Edin, whom the Scots have beaten in their last eight meetings, before they take on Canada’s top team on this season’s form Team McEwen, who knocked them out of the Astec Safety Challenge in the semi-finals last week.
While they enjoyed that competition as they got back into the competitive groove for the first time since winning the third of this season’s Grand Slam titles, they are now looking forward to Grand Slam conditions as they make their bid for history.
“The Astec Safety Challenge is always a fantastic event, but for us that’s two semi-final losses in the last two years. You can’t win them all, though,” said McMillan.
“It was another good week for us considering it was the first time we had been back on ice as a team since St John’s after the guys had been playing mixed doubles for a month, so we’ll take a semi-final.
“There were no time clocks last week, so some of the games were really long-winded and a lot of teams took significantly extra time at various stages deciding on shots, so you just had to sit down for a couple of minutes while that was happening.” 
They are once again accompanied at the event by fellow Scots Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle who were paid the compliment of being the last team selected in the draft and are eager to get back onto the ice after reaching the quarter-finals at the Astec Safety Challenge.
“We played well last week in Lloydminster before we came up against Team Dunstone who were playing very well and ended up going on to win the event,” said skip Whyte.
“We were throwing it great, though and it leaves us in good stead going into the Slam this week, so we’re excited to get going.
“Hopefully practice goes well and we find our feet early and we can get some good results.”
He, too, enjoyed the way the event was set-up, resulting in an opening tie against Team Muskatewitz whom they beat in their only previous meeting at The Kioti National which took place the week after the Germans won the European Championships.
“It’s a bit different the way they’ve done the draw this week with the draft picking making who you end up with is a wee bit more interesting in who’s been picked where,” said Whyte.
“I don’t believe we can read too much into it as we were last picked, but it’s a bit of fun and good to see that people are starting to change things up.
“We know they’ll be looking for a bit of revenge from the last Slam and they’ve obviously come into a bit of a run this year having a great season and putting some great results out there, but you know that everyone in the Slams will be very difficult and if we can come out with a win in that one it would be a great start to the competition.”
For results and more information from WFG Masters.
Images: Anil Mungal/GSOC & PPA/Graeme Hart
