A season that has seen the country that invented the sport dominate the men’s global game has set the perfect platform for The Hardie Engineering Scottish Curling Championships which takes place from February 2-8 at the Dumfries Ice Bowl.
The success of home-grown teams on the world stage is summed up in that Team Mouat go into the event way clear of the second placed team in the world rankings having won the first three Grand Slam events of the season, yet they are neither the defending champions, nor winners of the most recent of this season’s Slams.
Those honours belong to Ross Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle, who won their first Scottish title a year ago, beating Team Craik in the final, then asserted themselves at elite level last month, beating the very best in the sport to the WFG Masters title last month as they demonstrated their ambition.
”It has been a nice feeling being Scottish Champions this past year,” said skip Ross Whyte, ahead of the nationals.
“It’s something you always want to be when you are younger, so to do it for the first time last year was a great feeling and hopefully we can continue that and be Scottish Champs for another year which is certainly something we will try and do this week.
“Winning the Slam was a nice feeling just ahead of the Scottish and hopefully we can continue that form.
“We played really well at the Slam and we have been training hard since then at the National Curling Academy (NCA) so hopefully we can turn that into something good this week.”
Whyte has the added incentive of performing once again in front of his own folk.
“It is a great feeling going back to Dumfries,” he said.
“I think I played in the final last year on the sheet that I threw my first ever stone so that was pretty special, so hopefully good memories will continue and now that we are Grand Slam Champions we can go back there and win another title.
“So looking forward to this week and hopefully we can turn the confidence we have into some good performances and go on and win this week.”
With another local as his vice skip in Grant Hardie, along with two more from the south-west in Stranraer pair Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan, Bruce Mouat is meanwhile relishing the domestic environment that is generating such consistent success.
“Scottish teams have had a lot of success across this season so far, so we are looking forward to getting to play against them all and seeing how we can compare to a lot of achievements that have been set by a lot of the teams in the field. It should be a really good event,” said Team Mouat’s skip.
“It’s very exciting that all four Slam trophies have come back to Scotland with us winning the first three and Ross with the latest one and it is really exciting to see how much Scotland has come on since the first Slam was won for Scotland by a men’s team in 2017.
“Now almost eight years later we have the potential to win all five Slams in one year and bring all of those trophies back to Scotland so that is a very exciting prospect to end the season in April and hope that we are the team that claims that title, but if not it would be very exciting to have Ross or one of the other Scottish teams to win it as well.”
The men’s field also includes teams skipped by 2018 Olympian Kyle Waddell and James Craik, the 2022 World Junior Championship winning skip, as well as Orrin Carson, the three time Scottish Junior Championship winner who enjoyed huge success last month with a first victory on the senior men’s tour at the Perth Masters, followed by a gold medal in mixed doubles at the World University Games.
That was achieved with Robyn Munro, who has, since last year’s event re-joined forces with Fay Henderson, her skip when they won the World Junior Championship in 2023.
With Olympic medallist Hailey Duff, as well as Katie McMillan in their line-up, Team Henderson go into the women’s event having targeted a successful defence of the title they won in 2024 as a major priority for the season.
”Defending our title this year has definitely been a goal all season for our team and we have been working really hard to achieve that both on and off the ice and hopefully everything will come together this week,” said skip Henderson.
“It is nice to play in Dumfries again with it being my home rink as well and to have a local business supporting it in Hardie Engineering.
“It is great to play in front of home fans as we don’t that often get the opportunity to do that much anymore and it will be nice to show everyone how hard we have been working this season.
“Robyn winning gold at the recent World University Games is really important and it gives our team a bit of a lift and our good semi final finish out in Bern with good strong competition also helps build the confidence heading in to the week and hopefully we can give a performance this week that we can be proud of.”
They are once again looking to overturn the global rankings as they pit themselves against the only Scottish women’s team in the world’s top 20 and two-time former champions Team Morrison, who are aiming to be selected for a fourth successive World Championships after qualifying Scotland in style by winning a bronze medal at this season’s European Championships.
“The Scottish Championships is one of the highlights of our season and it would mean an awful lot to us to win the title in front of our friends and family,” said Rebecca Morrison, whose line-up includes Olympic gold medallist Jen Dodds, along with Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson.
“It’s such a nice experience to be able to have everyone come and watch us and so we would really like to do everyone proud and see it across the finish line this year.
“We’d absolutely love the chance to represent Scotland again this season after having such a brilliant experience in Finland in November.
“Getting that opportunity would be a huge stepping stone towards our long term goals this Olympic cycle, so our sights are set on peaking in this final part of the season.”
Matches get underway at 10.00am tomorrow.
Watch every live streamed game from Curling Stadium Europe.
Please click here for the link to Scottish Curling's draw and results.
Images: Anil Mungal / GSOC, World Curling, PPA Graeme Hart