While Ross Whyte leads his defending champions into the first event in curling’s most prestigious series, compatriot Bruce Mouat will be targeting a victory which would complete a unique Grand Slam of Grand Slams at the AMJ Masters in London, Ontario this week (September 23-28).
While the Grand Slam of Curling has staged big money events across Canada for close to a quarter of a century, the term has been used for much longer to denote a clean sweep of titles in a wide array of sports and after an astonishing 2024-25 campaign Mouat’s reigning World Champions and world number one ranked team have the chance to hold all five titles at the same time.
Their four wins, alongside Whyte’s success at The Masters, produced what would, a decade earlier, have been an unimaginable Scottish Slam of title wins and Mouat is all the more pleased that they are competing at the sharp end when major efforts are being made to further grow the sport. 
“We’ve had a good run at The Masters in previous years, so we’re excited to play it again and hoping for the best to regain the title that we won in 2021,” he said.
“It’s nice to be back out with the boys, enjoying the wee bit of training that we’re doing and we’re very excited to have the Wheelchair Invitational as part of the Grand Slam.
“The Slams are starting to expand and to move into different countries, with the first American version taking place this year and the Wheelchair Invitational is a very exciting addition to the Grand Slam of Curling and The Curling Group.
“It’s nice to see that they are involving inclusion in our sport, giving the para athletes an opportunity to play in front of a crowd that we get at the Slams and I’m very keen to see some of their games.”
The skip, who has already led his team to the defence of their Euro Super Series title this season, was missing from the line-up as Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie, Hammy McMillan and Kyle Waddell, who will be their fifth player at next year’s Winter Olympics, went unbeaten through the pool stages at last week’s Shorty Jenkins Classic, before missing out at the quarter-final stage, but he naturally kept an eye on proceedings from afar.
“It was good to see some of the boys games last week,” said Mouat.
“I had a busy week myself, just with helping out with a couple of friends’ wedding, so it was nice to see that they played really well, but it’s good to be out with them competing again.”
They set out this week in an all-European pool, alongside Sweden’s seven time World Champions Team Edin, Germany’s Team Muskatewitz and Switzerland’s Team Hoesli, which is itself a sign of the times.
“It’s been a busy start to the season for most of the European teams and it’s incredible to see how many of them are in the Tier One and Tier Two events here, so we’re all raring to go and seeing how we compare with what the Canadian teams have to offer.
“It is quite exciting to see so many European teams on the world stage now and it means we don’t have to travel as far to get real quality competitions, but we obviously love coming to Canada where they have a lot of amazing events.”
For Whyte, meanwhile, the title defence at The Masters is a new experience, but one he is relishing along with team mates Robin Brydone, Euan Kyle and Craig Waddell, who continues to deputise for Duncan McFadzean.
“We’re very excited to be going back to the Slam that we won last year and going in as defending champions is a new experience for us at Slams, so we’re hoping to go back there and put in a really good performance again and try to go really deep,” he said.
“We’re looking this year to try to create as many talking points and try to win as many Slams as we can as one of our goals, as it has been for the last few years, but now we’ve finally got the breakthrough we’re hoping that we can progress and really push on.”
While they had been consistently challenging at the top of the world rankings in previous seasons, that Masters win took their profile and their belief to a new level.
“I definitely feel a lot more confident and know we can beat anyone out there, so if it’s our week then we don’t see why we can’t win it,” said Whyte.
“We have way more confidence than we ever have and we feel like we’re playing really well this year and hopefully we can continue that and bring that form out to London.”
The seamless way in which the younger Waddell brother has slotted into the line-up has only reinforced that confidence and, having already won in Canada this season, across Ontario at the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard.
“Craig’s slotted in really well, he’s been doing a great job and we’re looking to continue the team dynamics we’ve had as a four,” said Whyte.
“Although we’ve lost three quarter-finals this season, as well as winning one event, we feel like we’ve been playing really well and we showed that in the last two weeks.
“We had a tough game in the quarter-finals of the Shorty Jenkins which came down to a miss by literally millimetres, so we’re very happy with how we’ve been playing.”
Kyle Waddell rejoins regular team mates Mark Watt, Angus Bryce and Blair Haswell in the men’s Tier 2 event, meanwhile British Curling is also represented in the women’s competition at The Masters where Team GB’s Olympic line-up of Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson, as well as reigning Scottish champions Fay Henderson, Lisa Davie, Hailey Duff and Katie McMillan take part in the Tier Two event.
Results
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 Morrison
Sophie Jackson
Rebecca Morrison
Jennifer Dodds
Sophie Sinclair
Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Hailey Duff
Lisa Davie
Katie McMillan
Laura Watt
Images: British Curling / PPA
