Edinburgh’s Bruce Mouat made curling history last night when he and his team became the first Scottish men’s team to win a Grand Slam event in Canada at The Boost National in Ontario, beating Korea’s Team Kim 9-4 in the final.
It was just the second time a Scottish team has reached a men’s Grand Slam final in Canada and also only the second time that two non-Canadian teams have contested one, the first having been when Perth’s Team Smith met Sweden’s former world champions skipped by Niklas Edin last year.
Mouat has overhauled his rink since reaching the Scottish Championship final earlier this year, he and Bobby Lammie having been joined by Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan jr, while Dave Murdoch, who has retired since his team beat them in the final at the nationals has joined their coaching team.
Murdoch was consequently first to congratulate them on something he never achieved in a career which saw him win two world titles and reach an Olympic final, saying: “That was an exceptional display of shotmaking on terrific ice conditions this week against the world’s best.”
They reached the final with a string of remarkable performances, losing only at an extra end to Brad Gushue’s world champions in the pool stages, beating local favourite Brad Jacobs’ reigning Olympic champions and the title holders in this event in the tie-breaker, last year’s world champions Team Koe in the quarters and another top Canadian rink Team McEwen in the semis. That meant they met Team Kim for the third time in a Canadian event this year having won the previous two and after going 3-1 down at the the third end they turned things round with a three at the fourth, before wrapping up their win with a four at the seventh end.
It was meanwhile also an excellent day for Scotland’s representatives at the European Championships in Switzerland where Team Smith maintained their 100 per cent record after three matches with a 5-3 victory over Russia, while Eve Muirhead’s rink recovered from losing their opening round-robin match to Sweden on Saturday by beating Russia 8-7 after an extra end before following that up with a 6-1 victory over Denmark.
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