News Canadian Open

NISKU, Alta. — Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat completed another successful sweep to capture an eighth Grand Slam of Curling men’s title.

Mouat wrapped up an undefeated 7-0 run through the Co-op Canadian Open with a 6-2 victory over Canada’s Team Brad Gushue during Sunday’s final at the Silent Ice Center. 

The team of Mouat, third Grant Hardie, second Bobby Lammie and lead Hammy McMillan Jr., cashed in $44,000 from the prize purse.

“It feels really good,” Mouat said. “It was an incredible game, we hardly missed a shot and all the guys throughout the team were playing amazing. I’m really proud of us.” 

The stats agree with Mouat’s assessment. Both Mouat and Hardie shot 98 per cent, Lammie scored a perfect 100 per cent and McMillan fired a “low” 96 per cent.

It was Mouat’s second consecutive Grand Slam title as his team has yet to lose a game in the series this season. Mouat defeated Gushue 10-3 to win the HearingLife Tour Challenge last month in Charlottetown.

Gushue parted ways with second E.J. Harnden only a few days after that final and added former skip Brendan Bottcher to his club. Bottcher has fit in well with the St. John’s, N.L., crew — which also includes third Mark Nichols and lead Geoff Walker — as Team Gushue had won six straight heading into the final.

The game of centimetres lived up to its name before the game even started during the draw-to-the-button shootout to determine hammer. Gushue went first and was only two centimetres away. Pretty impressive, however, Mouat covered the pinhole to secure the last-rock advantage.

“That was important for us,” Mouat said. “We know we’re very strong when we have hammer at the start of the game, so we were trying our best to make sure that we had hammer. We really dialled in on the practice before the game, had a good warm-up and all of those things that really helped towards that.”

That proved to be key. Mouat capitalized on Team Gushue’s mistakes and just had to hit the paint with his last rock of the opening end to score three points.

“We’ve been starting really hot all week, so we knew it was really important, managed to get the draw shot,” Hardie said. “Once we put that three on the board, we were really confident to just carry on the performance and close the game out.”

Mouat added that it was probably the biggest swing of the game.

“We managed to get a few misses out of them in the first end when the ice was maybe a wee bit unknown,” he said. “It was really good that we stuck in and managed to hold that lead for the whole game.”

After Mouat drew to the button once more to sit three counters in the second, Gushue tapped the shot rock back for just a single.

Mouat had to draw for one point in the third, and he made a straight runback to sit another trio in the fourth as Gushue was forced to take another lonely point again. 

The 15-time Grand Slam champion Gushue drew around a guard in the fifth end, however, Mouat could see enough of it to take it out and score a deuce to build a four-point gap. 

Gushue blanked the sixth but couldn’t get anything going in the seventh either and threw his last rock through his legs to score one point on the board — but also several style points with the capacity crowd — before shaking hands. 

While the fans were mostly pro-Gushue, there were quite a few Mouat supporters in the stands as well.

“We know that the Scotland-Canadian link is pretty strong, so now that we’ve been here for a while, we’re starting to see some fans turning out for us, which is really nice,” Mouat said. “There were people with ‘Mouat’ signs as well, which was really special. We’ve not really had that before. Edmonton’s been really nice for us.”

Hardie added with a smile: “I think Bruce and Hammy both had a few friends in the area that came out and a couple of Scottish people came to support us. When it’s such a good crowd full of Canadians, it’s nice to have a few familiar faces.”

Team Gushue collected $34,000 for going 4-0 through pool play and finishing runner-up.

Earlier, Canada’s Team Rachel Homan captured a record-extending 16th Grand Slam of Curling women’s title with a 7-5 win over Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni in the women’s final.

UP NEXT

The Grand Slam of Curling season continues with the KIOTI National, Nov. 26 to Dec. 1, at the Mary Brown’s Centre in St. John’s, N.L.