Eight Ends: Mouat caps mega season with historic title win at AMJ Players’ Championship
The Grand Slam of Curling season came to a close Sunday with a pair of thrilling finals at the AMJ Players’ Championship. Here’s a “by the numbers” look at the facts and stats.
TORONTO — The Grand Slam of Curling season came to a close with a pair of thrilling finals Sunday at the AMJ Players’ Championship.
Scotland’s Bruce Mouat pulled off a shot-of-the-year candidate, right as the year was ending, with an amazing raise to bump his stone to the button to defeat Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller 6-5 in an extra end to win the men’s title.
That also capped a grinding 16-day run of curling for Mouat, who beat Schwaller in the World Men’s Curling Championship gold medal game just a week prior and also played Canada’s Rachel Homan in skins game for charity at the first Rio Mare Battle of the Sexes presented by The Curling Group on the eve of the AMJ Players’ Championship.
Earlier Sunday, Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni completed a successful title defence on the women’s side as fourth Alina Pätz pulled off a double takeout in the eighth end — and her shooter hit the brakes to stay in the rings — to score the winning point and fend off Homan 5-4.
Here’s a “by the numbers” look at the highlights from the AMJ Players’ Championship in Eight Ends.
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First End: Team Mouat became the first to win four Grand Slam of Curling titles in a single season. Teams had won three championships on 11 occasions before this year, but even when the series featured seven events, four remained an elusive number until now.
Second End: Mouat won the first three this season at the HearingLife Tour Challenge, Co-op Canadian Open and WFG Masters. Although his title streak was snapped at the WFG Masters, with a loss to Canada’s Brad Jacobs in the semifinals, the trophy still went to Scotland. Ross Whyte defeated Jacobs in the final to claim his first Grand Slam title. With Mouat wrapping things up with another win at the AMJ Players’ Championship, Scotland became the first non-Canadian country to sweep a full season in the series on the men’s side.
Overwhelmed and exhausted, Mouat may need a few days to process what his team accomplished.
“A bit numb, a bit trying to figure out what just happened,” Mouat said. “I think the fact that we’ve won four, Team Whyte won the other one, all five are in Scotland, it’s pretty special. We’ve made some history, we won the worlds, there’s just too many emotions to try and figure it all out. It’s going to take me some time. I’ve got four days before I start training for the mixed doubles (worlds), so I’ll use those four days to try and figure it all out, but I’m very happy, obviously.”
Third End: Mouat also became the first non-Canadian skip to crack double-digit GSOC title wins. He ranks fourth on the all-time list among men’s skips behind only Kevin Martin (18), Brad Gushue (15) and Glenn Howard (14). While other skips have won titles with different lineups over the years or the odd player change, Mouat has captured all 10 of his titles with third Grant Hardie, second Bobby Lammie and lead Hammy McMillan Jr.
“An amazing group of guys,” Hardie said. “We’ve got a team back at British Curling as well that helps us. It’s just so much fun winning with them, 10 as well, it’s pretty special.”
Fourth End: Mouat has captured half of his Grand Slam of Curling men’s titles since the start of the Olympic cycle in the fall of 2022. That now leads the way in the men’s division with Joël Retornaz (four), Brendan Bottcher (two) and Brad Gushue (two) winning multiple titles this quadrennial as well. Mouat also holds the longest active men’s playoffs streak in the series at seven, reaching at least the semifinals in all of them, too.
Fifth End: Scotland now has 16 Grand Slam title wins, still good for second on the nation’s list but a distant second behind Canada with 143. Switzerland sits fourth on the list with six titles.
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Sixth End: This marked the first time that both AMJ Players’ Championship finals were rematches of the world championship gold medal games. While Mouat pulled off the double — make it a hat trick with the Rio Mare Battle of the Sexes win as well — it wasn’t a repeat on the women’s side as Tirinzoni turned the tables on Homan.
Tirinzoni defeated Homan for the first time in six meetings this season. Maybe it’s something in the ice at the Mattamy Athletic Centre as Tirinzoni holds a 5-3 advantage over Homan in eight games played at the venue dating back to 2015.
Tirinzoni became the fourth women’s skip to win back-to-back AMJ Players’ Championship titles after Jennifer Jones (2006, 2007), Eve Muirhead (2015, 2016) and Kerri Einarson (2019, 2021; no event was held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Tirinzoni, Pätz, second Carole Howald and lead Selina Witschonke topped Isabella Wranå’s team in last year’s final.
Seventh End: Tirinzoni took sole possession of fifth place on the all-time GSOC women’s skips wins list with her fifth title win. She was tied with Muirhead at four. Ahead of Tirinzoni are Homan (17), Jones (10), Anna Hasselborg (eight) and Einarson (six).
Eighth End: The loss in the final shouldn’t take away from what was an unbelievable season Team Homan had.
Overall, Homan finished 2024-25 with a 75-8 win-loss record (30-6 in GSOC), made the final in all 10 events her team played and won seven titles, including back-to-back Grand Slams at the Co-op Canadian Open and KIOTI National.
The three runner-up results were Grand Slams: HearingLife Tour Challenge (to Einarson), WFG Masters (to Hasselborg) and now the AMJ Players’ Championship (to Tirinzoni).
Homan became the first to reach five consecutive GSOC finals in a single season. Stretching back to last season, Homan has appeared in eight of the past nine Grand Slam women’s finals and holds the longest active playoff streak at nine events.
