2020 perfect year for Bruce and his team
Bruce Mouat led his team to yet another title at British Curling’s December Superspiel at the PEAK, Stirling to complete a perfect calendar year in domestic events.
With international competition ravaged by the Covid pandemic, Mouat has played in just nine men’s and mixed doubles tournaments in total, winning all seven of those that have been played in Scotland, as well as being part of the European team that beat Team Canada in the glitzy, Ryder Cup style Continental Cup in Canada at the start of the year.
That run stretched across the entire year, starting in early January at the Perth Masters where he and regular teammates Grant Hardie, Stirling University’s Bobby Lammie and Activde Stirling curling development officer Hammy Mcmillan successfully defended the title they had won for the first time in 2019.
They followed that up with a third successive Scottish title win while Mouat won the Scottish mixed doubles title with Jen Dodds, before being denied the chance to go to two World Championships, following the inevitable cancellation of both events.
With travel still heavily restricted,
Index of 15.1 for the best of the day net 43.9 to win one of the top five places.
Other voucher winners were Alasdair Mclennan 66 (18.5) 47.5; Colin Baxter 80 (31.1) net 48.9; Alasdair Nicolson 65 (16) 49 and Fraser Dykes 63 (13.7) 49.3.
Sweep winners were as follows: Division One: 1 Scott Monteith 58 (7.8) 50.2; 2 Steven Duncan 53 (2) 51; 3 Chris Arnold 58 (5.8) 52.2. Division Two: 1 Fraser Dykes 63 (13.7) 49.3; 2 John Brown 63 (13.2) 49.8; 3 Chris Speirs 61 (10.9) 50.1. Division Three: 1 Colin Griffin 59 (15.1) 43.9; 2 Alasdair Maclennan 66 (18.5) 47.5; 3 Colin Baxter 80 (31.1) 48.9.
A further five cards drawn by clubhouse manager Adele Ramsey will each receive a sleeve of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls donated by club captain George Clelland - Iain T Campbell, Chris Devlin, Iain Mcghee, Malcolm Mcgregor and Barry Mcintyre.
Club captain George Clelland would like to pass on his best wishes to everyone at Stirling Golf Club,
British Curling worked hard to ensure that its leading players continue to get the chance to compete and has put on four events in the first half of the 2020/21 season under special protocols at the National Curling Academy in Stirling.
Team Mouat won the men’s titles in both the September Shoot-out and the November Classic and, after Mouat and Dodds won the British Curling Mixed Doubles Tankard last week, they have now ended the year as they started it, by claiming the December Superspiel title.
They clinched it by avenging their only defeat in the preliminary stages of the tournament when they beat Ross Whyte’s rink 7-3 in the final.
“We knew it was going to be a tight game. They beat us in the roundrobin when we didn’t put in our best performance, so we knew we were going to have to play a bit better,” said Mouat.
With teams across the globe severely limited in terms of competitive opportunities, Mouat believes that a combination of access to state of the art facilities at the National Curling Academy in Stirling and the growing strength in depth within The Peak-based British Curling squad is standing players in good stead.
“There are four or five really good men’s teams in our programme that we’re playing against constantly and to have a team like Ross Whyte’s giving us games like that is a good challenge for us in preparation for World Championships if we get to go to that,” he said.
“You always want to have tough opposition to make sure you’re not in a false sense of security and the boys are really good opposition and we think we’re going to be playing against teams like that later in the season as well. So, to have them here is a great opportunity for us to have some really tough games.”
He acknowledged that winning all three tournaments played this season has put his team in a strong position to go to the World Championships in Canada this season after the disappointment of missing out on contesting them when they were due to be staged in Glasgow earlier in the year.
“It’s a lovely position to be in going into the break,” said Mouat. “This definitely put us as the front-runners for selection.
“There are two more events into the New Year that will obviously come into account as well, but I guess when there are only five events before selection and we’ve won three of them it’s quite a good thing for us.”