HearingLife Canadian Open Notebook: Hammy McMillan Jr. reflects on Team Mouat’s ‘fairy tale’ run
SASKATOON — Bruce Mouat and his Scottish squad are flying high again, but that wasn’t the case when they were last at Merlis Belsher Place.
Mouat missed the cut when the venue hosted the Masters two years ago. Over the following 10 Grand Slam of Curling events, the team captured seven men’s titles and reached the semifinals in the other three.
The reigning world champions have clinched a playoff berth in an 11th consecutive Grand Slam event, improving to a 3-0 record at the HearingLife Tour Challenge with a 7-4 win Thursday over Team Casper of the United States.
“It’s been pretty nuts, to be honest, kind of like a fairy tale, I guess,” said Hammy McMillan Jr., who throws lead stones for Team Mouat.
McMillan pointed to the 2024 World Men’s Curling Championship in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, where the team fell short of the podium, as the moment when everything changed.
“I think that was a massive turning point for us, then things started to really click,” McMillan said. “We reassessed our goals, and I guess that’s what made us really consistent over the last two years.”
McMillan said the team would absolutely love to close out the 2025 calendar with a third consecutive Grand Slam title victory, after claiming back-to-back trophies at the CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe.
“Winning these Grand Slams, it’s a massive part of our careers and Team Mouat’s identity,” McMillan said. “To finish off 2025, going into the Players’ (Championship) in January and then the Olympics in February, this is our third last event as a team this season. It’s pretty nuts to think about it that way, but yeah, it’d be awesome to end this week, this year, with a W.”
Team Casper was playing without Danny Casper, as alternate Rich Ruohonen rotated into the lineup to skip and throw lead stones while third Luc Violette handled last rock duties.
Although Mouat didn’t start with the last-rock advantage, he managed to flip the hammer, forcing the American club to a single in the first and made a tap for two points plus a 2-1 lead in the second.
Violette wrecked on a guard in the third to give up a steal of three, but he recovered with a nifty bump shot in the fourth to unlock Mouat’s rock and score a deuce to close the gap to 5-3.
The early deficit was too much to overcome, as it was singles back and forth on the board from there.
Team Casper held the hammer coming home, but ran out of rocks after Mouat made a double.
“We’ve controlled the games from the start,” McMillan said. “Maybe we haven’t been just as clinical to see them out, but 3-0 and to qualify is always good.”
Casper, No. 8 in the world rankings, was eliminated from playoff contention at 0-3.
ROCK LEAGUE READY TO ROLL
The Curling Group, which owns and operates the Grand Slam of Curling, announced on Thursday the dates and locations for the 2026 and 2027 seasons of Rock League.
The all-new professional curling league will feature six mixed-gendered franchises featuring five men’s curlers and five women’s curlers. Franchises will compete in various disciplines, including men’s, women’s and mixed play plus mixed doubles. Strategic advisors and Olympic gold medallists Jennifer Jones and John Morris assembled the rosters, which were revealed Tuesday.
McMillan will be part of Alpine Curling Club, featuring Alina Pätz as captain and Scottish curling legend Eve Muirhead as general manager.
“I’m absolutely buzzing, I’m not gonna lie,” McMillan said. “I posted a wee video earlier. It’s given me that, as I said, Continental Cup, Ryder Cup kind of vibes.
“We’ve got Eve as a GM, Alina as captain, Oskar (Eriksson), Emma (Miskew), Joël (Retornaz). We’ve got some really top curlers that every single one of our roster, I would say, is pretty amazing. So, now looking forward to April.”
Rock League will hit the ice with a seven-day preview season, April 6-12, 2026, at TMU’s Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, to catch the post-Olympic wave before expanding with a five-week season in 2027.
THURSDAY’S ROUNDUP
Team Matt Dunstone’s streak of Grand Slam of Curling finals will end at three. The Canadian club dropped to 0-3 and will miss the playoffs after losing 9-4 to Team Marc Muskatewitz in Draw 10.
The German club clinched a spot with seven points, with two regulation wins and a shootout loss.
Canada’s Team Rachel Homan and South Korea’s Team Seung-youn Ha clinched playoff berths with unblemished 3-0 records on the women’s side.
Homan doubled up on South Korea’s Team Eun-jung Kim 6-3 in Draw 11 and Ha topped Japan’s Team Ikue Kitazawa 6-4 in Draw 9.
Draw 9
• Gim 7, Kang 4
• Retornaz 5, McEwen 3
• Waddell 7, Kleiter 2
• Ha 6, Kitazawa 4
Draw 10
• Hasselborg 8, Fujisawa 1
• Muskatewitz 9, Dunstone 4
• Mouat 7, Casper 4
• Wang 7, X. Schwaller 3
Draw 11
• Tirinzoni 9, Tabata 2
• Shuster 9, Epping 4
• Whyte 7, Edin 3
• Homan 6, Kim 3
