Scotland’s historic double European Curling Championship success last weekend has proved inspirational to the next generation, with both newly-crowned Scottish junior champions drawing upon the performances of Teams Mouat and Muirhead.
While the senior rinks were becoming the first Scots to claim men’s and women’s European titles on the same weekend, their British Curling colleagues Teams Craik and Henderson were battling for their own places in history at the Scottish Junior Championships at Curl Aberdeen and achieving their main season’s goals.
Team Craik and Team Henderson will represent Scotland at the World Junior Championships in Sweden in March as a reward for their success.
“Our teams had unbelievable success in Norway as a nation last weekend and to know that was happening when we were also on the ice rink created a really good atmosphere,” said James Craik.
“Everyone was in a positive mood and we felt that on the ice as well, everyone was cheering us on.
“Seeing the success Teams Mouat and Muirhead are having does give us great confidence when we’re travelling abroad, because we know we’re following the same programme as them, so if we keep doing what we’re doing, hopefully that can be us one day. ”
Fay Henderson echoed those sentiments, adding that their own successes at Curl Aberdeen reinforced their belief that they have given themselves a huge opportunity by earning places on the British Curling programme.
“To see the two Scotland teams win at the European Championships last weekend was inspirational and it shows what we can achieve as well with hard work and the support of British Curling,” she said.
“With James Craik winning as well on the boys side, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that what we’re doing is working and all the support we’ve been given has been very helpful and will help us perform on the world stage.”
It was a second victory as skip at the Scottish juniors for Craik, who hails from Edzell.
He added: “Going through the week unbeaten shows that we really are putting in the effort and training harder than anyone else and managing to get the results made a statement out there that we are the deserved winners and the best team to represent Scotland in Sweden.”
Having claimed bronze on both his previous appearances at the World Junior Championships, with Team Whyte in 2019, then with his own team the following year, Craik is determined to improve on that and believes his team is capable of doing so.
“That was our first trial run as a team at a championships and going undefeated in our nationals does give us a lot of confidence,” he said.
“We know we can play 10 games in a row and attack them all with the same diligence, attitude and performance standard, because our fitness is good enough.”
Dumfries’s Henderson has a different immediate challenge as she and teammates Katie McMillan, Lisa Davie and Holly Wilkie-Milne also prepare to head for Scandinavia at the start of January for the World Junior B Championships, where they will be trying to get Scotland back to the top flight.
“This was our big target for the season, so it’s amazing to achieve it and I’m really proud of my team for the way we supported each other throughout the whole week. We played really well,” said the 19-year-old skip.
“I won the mixed doubles a couple of years ago, but to win a team event is the big one that everyone wants to win. It’s something I’ve worked towards for a very long time, so it’s great to be able to tick that off.”