Team Mouat back in Grand Slam action at Boost Nation

An ill-timed injury to Bobby Lammie forms the backdrop for Team Mouat's return to top-level curling at the Boost National.

The Olympic silver medal-winning rink of Mouat, Lammie, Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan are back on the Grand Slam circuit this week in North Bay, Ontario.

Mouat may be forced to eschew his usual role as skip after second Lammie broke his hand in training less than a fortnight ago.

He said: "I broke my hand 11 or 12 days ago, so I'm going to try to practise tonight and see how it feels.

"I don't think I'll be able to sweep, but I'll maybe be able to skip and hopefully still throw my shots in the second position.

"That's the plan. I'm just taking a day at a time just now and we'll see how it feels on the day."

A run of three successive Grand Slam titles in winter 2020 in the Calgary bubble saw the quartet established as one of the leading rinks in the world.

That sparked a run of world silver, European gold and Olympic silver behind Sweden's Niklas Edin at Beijing 2022.

"We feel very set," said Lammie.

"We've had a big training set, about six weeks long after Baden, so we've been on ice a lot together, getting things ironed out and I think we’re in a pretty good place going into this.

"Bruce obviously had a very good result last weekend, so he's obviously playing very well and in a good place, so hopefully we can put it all together this week.

"It's great to be back. The Grand Slams are competitions we've thrived in over the last couple of years and we always look forward to playing against the top teams in the world, so we're looking forward to getting started and getting the competitive juices flowing again."

Mouat won the first mixed doubles Grand Slam title of his career last week alongside Jennifer Dodds at the Hardline Open.

Ross Whyte, alternate to Team Mouat in Beijing, leads his own team in the same round-robin group as the frontline British rink. Sportsbeat 2022