Eight Ends: Could Mouat eventually overtake Martin for most Grand Slam men's titles?

When Scotland's Bruce Mouat made his Grand Slam of Curling debut at the 2016 Champions Cup, the 21-year-old reigning world junior champion left an immediate impression by scoring wins over Olympic medallists Niklas Edin and John Shuster.

Who could have imagined what would unfold for Mouat in the series though?

Mouat formed a new team the following year, retaining Bobby Lammie at second and adding cousins Grant Hardie at third and Hammy McMillan Jr. at lead. The new-look club played in its first Grand Slam together at the 2017 National where Mouat became the youngest men's skip to win a Grand Slam title.

Seven years later, Mouat is now a nine-time champion, winning the Kioti National once more after defeating Brad Jacobs 5-3 Sunday at the Mary Brown's Centre in St. John's, N.L.

Mouat broke a tie with Wayne Middaugh to take sole possession of fourth place on the all-time wins list among men's skips. That leaves only Kevin Martin (18), Brad Gushue (15) and Glenn Howard (14) ahead of him.

Considering Mouat is now halfway to catching Martin, could he eventually one day surpass the Ol' Bear? It will take a while for him to get there, but Mouat, who just turned 30 this past summer, is on the right track and has time on his side.

"Bruce is such a humble guy he will not see himself in the same sentence as those guys but when you put it on paper, he is one of the best skips to play the game now," Hardie said. "Lucky to be a part of it."

FIRST END: Mouat has had an incredible year kicking off 2024 by winning last season's Co-op Canadian Open to become only the sixth men's skip to complete a career Grand Slam, and he's the youngest to achieve the feat, too.

His team has swept all three Grand Slam men's titles this season, picking up the Tour Challenge in October and successfully defending the Co-op Canadian Open last month before taking the KIOTI National.

Mouat holds a 19-1 record in the series this season with his lone loss coming against Shuster, 6-3, during round-robin play last Wednesday. He avenged the defeat with a decisive 7-2 victory in the rematch during the quarterfinals.

As impressive as that is, Team Mouat is 30-3 in the series if you stretch that to the start of 2024.

The Grand Slam of Curling rings in the new year with the WFG Masters, Jan. 14-19, at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph, Ont., where Mouat will look to become the first to win four consecutive Grand Slam titles in a single season. (Martin won five straight across two seasons.)

"This is a year that we’re going to remember for a long time," Mouat said. "We’re going to have to try and bring it back in 2025 and see what we can do at the Masters. We’re going to just ride this wave as long as we can because we’re having a great time."

SECOND END: Of course, if you want to look at incredible years, Canada's Rachel Homan tops the list. Just like Mouat, Homan started the year by winning the Co-op Canadian Open in January. Her team bookended 2024 with back-to-back championships at the Co-op Canadian Open and Kioti National after finishing runner-up in the HearingLife Tour Challenge.

Homan also ran the table at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and lost only one game en route to taking gold at the world championship. Homan finished 2024 with a 75-5 record and will take a 23-game winning streak into 2025. That's just incredible.

"It’s been a dream year and ending it with a win feels amazing going into the holidays," Homan said. "But we’ve got more work to do coming into the new year. Hopefully, we can keep this going in the new year."

THIRD END: The only Grand Slam event in 2024 that neither Mouat nor Homan reached the final was the season-ending Players' Championship in April. Oddly enough, both lost to the eventual winner in the semifinals: Mouat fell to Brad Gushue 6-5 while Homan dropped a 5-3 decision to Silvana Tirinzoni. Just a coincidence.

FOURTH END: The Kioti National was Jacobs's 15th Grand Slam men's final, but his first since linking up with third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert.

It was the shocking story of the off-season as the Calgary-based trio parted ways with skip Brendan Bottcher. Although they had won a pair of Grand Slams, finished runner-up in two others and were No. 1 in the world rankings at one point, they opted to move in a different direction and joined forces with Jacobs, who had left Reid Carruthers's team.

Jacobs, who has won seven Grand Slam titles, said after the semifinals they've done a lot of growing, having tough conversations and asking questions as they get more comfortable with each other to get to this point.

"It wasn’t going to happen overnight," Jacobs said. "When you make a change at the skip position, which is the leader of the team, it’s a big change and we’re trying to really get this Team Jacobs machine running smoothly. We’ve gone through that sort of storming phase and I think we’re at a point where we’re really close to being at that performing phase.

"I told the guys over the last two weeks, I said, ‘I feel like we’re very, very close to a breakthrough,’ and I’m not really surprised to see that we’re in the final this week."

FIFTH END: In all my years covering the Grand Slam of Curling, I can't recall a draw that even came close to Saturday's men's quarterfinals at the Mary Brown's Centre in terms of crowd reaction. The sold-out arena of 6,000-plus fans that overwhelmingly cheered on hometown hero Gushue all week had reached a fever pitch come playoff time.

Jacobs's decision to give up a single steal and take the hammer coming home all tied up didn't go over well with the crowd, which showered him with a chorus of boos. That seemed to fire Jacobs up as he called for more, raising his arms and twirling his finger as he slid down the ice.

The thing is, it was the right call. With the five-rock rule, it's never been easier to score a deuce with the hammer and a big mistake could open the door for a team to score three.

Jacobs knows that firsthand. Look no further than his quarterfinal match against Matt Dunstone in the HearingLife Tour Challenge. The skip from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., led by two points, but Dunstone had the hammer coming home and capitalized big time on an error from his opponent to score the winning three points.

Here's another one: Jacobs even conceded a steal of one in the seventh end to lose the lead against Brendan Bottcher in the 2018 Tour Challenge final then took two in the eighth to win 6-5.

It might not have been popular, but it worked out for Jacobs as he scored a single in the eighth end to eliminate Gushue 6-5.

SIXTH END: The crowd reaction was absolute scenes. I've already gone in-depth on why the players loved it, but here's the business side of it. You need that excitement and energy in the building to give it a main event feel. It's part of the puzzle to make fans have a reason to care, particularly the casual audience who you're trying to hook and turn into die-hard supporters. That will then attract advertisers and sponsors and really raise the profile of the sport.

The other pieces involve the production from new camera angles like a hat cam to theatrical player introductions and even turning a well-known off-ice pastime among the curlers into a full-scale show with the Grand Slam of Karaoke, complete with a live band and a championship belt awarded to the winner.

Homan was the GSOK winner during the KIOTI National, joining Team Shuster on stage to perform "No Diggity" only half an hour after winning her semifinal match against Eun-jung Kim and a little over 12 hours before she'd hit the ice for the championship final against Anna Hasselborg. It's a side of Homan you wouldn't see on the ice and one you probably didn't know existed.

SEVENTH END: Team Hasselborg is back and in more ways than one.

Hasselborg skipped the Co-op Canadian Open to train for the European Championships while second Agnes Knochenhauer also missed the HearingLife Tour Challenge to attend her sister's wedding.

After earning silver at the Euros, Hasselborg reached her first Grand Slam final since winning the Players' Championship in April 2022. The 6-5 loss to Homan in the championship game was the lone blemish to Hasselborg's record for the week.

EIGHTH END: Some quick hits to wrap up this week's notebook.

Marc Muskatewitz made a splendid top flight debut reaching the quarterfinals and fresh off of upsetting Mouat to capture gold at the European Championships in Lohja, Finland. Facing Gushue on home ice to start was a rough intro for his German team, but Muskatewitz battled hard through the week and defeated Hösli, another young team on the rise, in a tiebreaker to qualify.

The women's side also saw some fresh faces qualify with Christina Black and Sayaka Yoshimura reaching the quarterfinals. Black defeated Yoshimura in the HearingLife Tour Challenge Tier 2 final to receive an invitation to the KIOTI National. Yoshimura has had a solid season and earned a berth on merit. Both have played in Grand Slam major tournaments before but having more contenders in turn helps raise the bar and Grand Slam regulars who missed the playoffs this time will have to step up their game.

Gushue and McEwen's rivalry has certainly ramped up. Since Gushue defeated McEwen in the Brier final last season, McEwen has won four straight head-to-head meetings in the fall. McEwen went full heel during their round-robin match for laughs but was all business on the ice to earn the 4-3 win.

Gushue was obviously disappointed with his quarterfinal finish. The 15-time Grand Slam champ wanted to put on a good showing for his home fans and repeat the magic of the 2017 Brier, but something was off this week. His team will debrief and address what went wrong.

Finally, how many coaches can one team have? Legendary skip-turned-commentator Jennifer Jones, Team Jacobs coach Paul Webster and Team Shuster lead Matt Hamilton all made special guest appearances on Team Homan's bench observing and reporting. (Hopefully, they all got a share of the winnings although Hamilton can be bribed with Smarties.) None of them joined in any official capacity though. Homan's search for a new coach is still ongoing as she looks for a replacement for Bottcher, who stepped down after joining Team Gushue at second last month.