Mouat determined to defend European title

Scotland’s top three ranked men’s curling teams will go head to head this week for the chance to represent the nation at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships in Helsingborg, Sweden next month.

Perth’s Dewar’s Centre will host the European qualifying play-off which gets under way today, with the format comprising a double round-robin and the top two teams progressing to a best of three-game final.

Team Mouat are aiming to defend the European title they won last year at what was their first appearance in the Championships.

Scotland’s debutants ended the four-year domination of current Olympic silver medallists and world champions Team Edin, beating the Swedes in the final.

Mouat’s quartet has had a good championship record at Dewar’s, winning back to back Scottish titles there for the last two years, as well as the Perth Masters at the start of this year. However, the skip who also led his men to Scotland’s first ever victory in a Grand Slam event in Canada two years ago, is taking nothing for granted.

Ross Paterson, like the other rival skip Glen Muirhead, has made three appearances for Scotland at a European Championships, the last of them on the same team as Muirhead when the event was hosted at Braehead in 2016.

However, while Muirhead won a silver medal as a non-playing alternate on his last appearance in the event in Switzerland two years ago, this opportunity represents the chance for both men to skip at the Euros for the first time and Paterson knows his old team-mate will be as keen as he is to earn the success that has so far eluded them on the ice.

Two-time former winner Eve Muirhead will lead Scotland’s women into action and will be looking to repeat their performance from 2017 to take the title from current champions Team Hasselborg who, like Niklas Edin’s men, have the advantage of playing in front of their own supporters.