Bruce Mouat sets sights on ultimate prize after Scotland win curling World Championships against Canada

Scotland celebrate their win over Canada at the World Championships.

Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan all shot well over 90 per cent as they took control of their meeting with Team Gushue from the outset and never gave them a chance to get back into a match which was completed in just eight of the 10 scheduled ends as the Scots ran out 9-3 winners.

“I didn’t expect the final to go that way,” said Scottish skip Mouat. “I just can’t really believe it happened the way it did. It felt like we were going to have to play a shot to win it in the 10th or 11th end, so it was just an unbelievable performance from all of the guys. To bring a game like that in a championship final means a lot. I’m just so proud of our coaching staff, Mikey (Goodfellow) and Ross (Paterson) and our fifth player Kyle (Waddell) for putting up with us all week and everyone that’s been part of our team, including everyone back home.”

Having headed into the event aiming to complete a full set of World Championship medals after winning bronze on their debut in 2018, then silver on their last appearance two years ago, he half-jokingly suggested that they had almost started the final too well. “Having such a big lead early on made me more nervous,” Mouat said. “Obviously you’re in a game like that, then you have to defend that lead and that made things a bit more anxious for me, but we managed to keep our cool I think. It was absolutely amazing. We shot the lights out. We needed an A-plus game to win a world final, which is what we said to one another this morning.”

Little more than a year after the disappointment of losing the Olympic final in Beijing, it was the perfect start to a new four-year cycle and having completed the full set of World Championship medals, they can now focus on the sport’s ultimate prize. “The year after the Olympics, where we were gutted with the result, but knew we had created something special when we were there, we knew that if we brought something similar we could definitely win a World Championship and that’s exactly what we did tonight,” said Mouat. “We’re going to keep going to try to get to the Olympics and hopefully re-create something like what we did today. That’s the goal for all of us and is exactly why we’re still together right now. It’s going to be a long four years, but we’re definitely ready to go. This was just a great week. We had our ups and downs, but we performed when we needed to and had a really good game to finish it off, which is exactly what you need to do.”

Defeated Canadian skip Gushue said: “We’re disappointed we didn’t put on a good show for the people in Ottawa who did an incredible job hosting this all week. But congratulations to Bruce’s team. I knew it was a matter of time before they won this, I just didn’t want it to be against us.”