Bruce Mouat: the British curling star making history ahead of Beijing 2022

There's a new king about curling shaking up the world order: Bruce Mouat.

Not unlike another warrior king of Scotland bearing the same name, Mouat is fast becoming something of a national hero courtesy of his continuing campaign of conquests.

At the end of the 2020-2021 season, the 27-year-old executed a near-flawless run of wins at bio-secure competitions in Canada.

The soaring Scotsman skipped his team of Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie, and Hammy McMillan to stunning consecutive Grand Slam of Curling men's event wins, and clinched silver in the World Men’s Curling Championship, securing Great Britain a berth for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Mouat then doubled down on his Olympic medal intentions after taking the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships on home soil in Aberdeen.

The man from Stirling, and partner Jennifer Dodds, dispensed with Olympic bronze medallists Norway in a thrilling final to book Britain another spot for Beijing.

With the 2021-2022 curling season now in full swing, the Scot picked to represent Team GB, is showing no signs of relenting his winning ways.

He and his men made history by becoming the first non-Canadian team to clinch a hat-trick of Grand Slam wins after defeating 2014 Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs and team 7-5 in the Masters men's final (October 24).

The victory thrusts Mouat into an elite group of just four male skips who have won three consecutive GSOC titles.

While he may be young in his sport, Mouat can't stop flexing his talent, and it looks like he and his rink are peaking at precisely the right time for a Winter Olympic medal challenge next February.

Curling between the margins of mystery and mastery

As Beijing 2022 continues inch closer Mouat is becoming a name that is increasingly hard to ignore; and his rivals are observing that too.

While that is in part down to the sweeping successes his team have enjoyed, it is also in part a result of the strategies the young curling upstart is employing to get ahead.

One of those is the way the Scot likes to study his competition; collating data on his opposition to then use to his team’s advantage. Speaking to Sportnet’s Inside Curling podcast, Mouat explained:

“We’re just really paying attention to the data that is being provided to us.”

“The stuff that we’re gathering… it’s on each team so it’s really good that we can go into a game, and we know if we’re playing Niklas [Edin] we’ll try and do a certain thing that’s maybe different to when we play Brendan [Bottcher] … all these different things.”

“You’re never going to be able to have enough data – in my opinion – but what we are doing right now is obviously quite a lot and as I say, it’s worked for us and we’re quite happy to have all that information playing against all the greatest teams in the world.”

There is something else that has caught the attention of his opposition; that is the way Mouat and his team choose to throw their stones.

Achieving the curl in curling is something of a balance between mystery and mastery.

Why the stone arcs the way that it does on the ice is something that still baffles physicists: that is, in essence, the mystery of it.

The mastery comes with developing a technique that, despite the lack of scientific understanding, enables you to tame the stones the way you want.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Team Mouat spent a long time studying each of their own individual throws. Their findings, Scotland’s top male rink believe, has provided them with an edge.

“We do a lot of individual sessions with our coach Alan Hannah and we have always said over the past years that we want to try and be able to throw it the same – it kind of makes my job easier as the skip so I know exactly what’s coming down the ice towards me rather than having to know three different releases plus my own,” Mouat details to Inside Curling.

“What we started to do in our individual sessions was to notice how many rotations we were doing… All these kind of things that would probably come natural to most teams then we’re trying to take it a wee bit further by making sure we’re always being positive, we’re always trying to give it that five, six rotations.”

“Teams were mentioning that quite a lot to us when we were at the worlds and the grand slams. I don’t think a lot of people had done or seen that many rotations.”

A stone will typically make three or four rotations on its trip before arriving and its intended destination. Mouat, however, believes that additional rotations allow the stone to be better manipulated when directionally sweeping:

“I don’t know if it’s a real science or not, I am not a genius by any stretch of the imagination but we’re getting that late finish.”

From an ice rink in Edinburgh to Beijing 2022

It was because of Moaut’s father that the Scot found himself in curling, but not perhaps in the way you might traditionally expect.

No member of the Mouat family had ever curled before. It was in fact a fateful clip in a newspaper asking for new junior curling club members that caught the attention of Mouat's parents.

His father took Bruce's brother, two years his senior, along for a session, leaving his younger son on the side peering through the glass. In awe of the sport the moment he saw it at just six years old, Mouat begged his father to let him have a go.

Eventually his insistence won them over and the young Scot was on the ice a year earlier than most clubs usually allow.

He’s rarely been off it since.

In 2018, after finishing his studies at Edinburgh Napier University, Mouat turned professional. Three out of the four members of his team are also committed full time to curling, travelling around the world to compete against the best.

The friends, family, and fans of the quartet are well known for the enthusiasm they pack with them. The familiar cry of the Scottish saying with a Mouat twist can often be heard in the stands: “There’s a Bruce loose about the house!”

With a ticket to Beijing 2022 now secured the Olympic debutant can't wait to replicate his current form.

Speaking to Team GB after receiving the nod Mouat was not shy about his ambitions: “We’re obviously going to aim really high when we’re there and we’re hoping to come home with some medals."

Find out more about Beijing 2022 on Olympics.com website, app and @Olympics social media handles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.