A shot which required exceptional imagination as well as supreme skill saw Grant Hardie produce the match-turning moment that allowed Team Mouat’s reigning World Champions to edge past an American rink led by 2018 Olympic gold medallist John Shuster as the intensity increased at the Euro Super Series in Stirling.
The US quartet who, along with compatriots Team Dropkin are among the international teams using the Scottish event to kick off a season which will see them compete to represent their country at next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, had proved typically difficult opponents for the host nation’s world number one ranked line-up of Bruce Mouat, Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan.
Taking a 5-4 lead into the last of the scheduled eight ends, they had made things look ever more awkward with two well protected stones in and around the button, when Hardie opted for a shot that few others could have envisaged. 
The team’s vice skip had only millimetres to play with as he lined up a runback on a red American guard to shift things in the house, yet delivered it so well that all three opposition stones flew out of play without any of the three yellow Scottish ones moving and from that point it was a relatively straightforward task to pick up the two necessary to secure the win.
“We work really hard on team dynamics and understanding each player and Grant is one of those players that you know if he is feeling the shot you just don’t think about it,” skip Mouat said afterwards.
“You just have to listen to him, he knows how he wants to throw things and as I said if he is feeling that shotI was more than happy to let him throw it because he makes them almost every single time.”
Delivery under pressure was Team Mouat’s hallmark last season as they became the first team in the history of the sport to win four of Canada’s Grand Slam events, the most lucrative in the sport, in a single season, as well as regaining the world title.
This time around there is the added incentive of those Winter Olympics and while they began this 2025-26 campaign by missing out at last weekend’s Baden Masters where they were defending the title, Mouat is happy with how they have started.
“We are very excited about this season up to this point,” he said.
“Last season, with the focus that we had, we achieved everything we wanted to and probably more.
“We have got a lot of hard work to do again to prove that spot as world number one and we are enjoying our curling so far in the first two events and we are just hoping that we can bring that kind of form to the Olympics in February.
“It would be tough to improve on last season and we have one major goal this season, but we would obviously love to win all five Slams one season as we were the first to do all four so why not try and be the first to get all five.” 
Fellow Scots Team Whyte also ended the second day unbeaten in the men’s event, while in the women’s event the top ranked Scots Team Morrison are one of three teams that take a 100 per cent record into the final day of round-robin competition, along with Denmark’s Team Dupont and Italy’s Team Constantini.
Euro Super Series (ESS) title got off to the ideal start at Stirling’s National Curling Academy
Every game from the Euro Super Series (21-24 August) and the Stirling Mixed Doubles Invitational (25-27 August) will be live streamed on the Curling Stadium Europe Platform.
Event passes can be obtained here
Results on Curling Zone
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
Team Craik
James Craik
Jake MacDonald
Fraser Swanston
Rory MacNair
Team Morrison
Sophie Jackson
Rebecca Morrison
Jennifer Dodds
Sophie Sinclair
Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Hailey Duff
Lisa Davie
Katie McMillan
Laura Watt
Team Soutar
Callie Soutar
Eva Hare
Holly Clemie
Allison Hamilton
Team Laurie
Tia Laurie
Cara Davidson
Kirsty Gallacher
Holly Burke
Amy Mitchell
