Dunstone Beats Mouat To Win Masters Title

Dunstone’s Third Masters Title, All At The Same Event

Some events just belong to a skip. The Grand Slam of Curling’s official report records Sunday’s win as Dunstone’s third title in the series, and all three of them have come at the Masters: his first in 2019, his second last season in London, Ontario, and now a successful defence in Medicine Hat. No other Grand Slam event has given him a trophy. The Masters keeps doing it.

The run to this one was clean from start to finish. Dunstone went 7-0 through the week, beating American Danny Casper 7-5 in the quarterfinals and then knocking off world No. 1 Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland 5-3 in Saturday’s semifinal. Mouat arrived at the final unbeaten as well, at 6-0, which made Sunday a meeting of the only two perfect records left in the men’s field. Something had to give, and it gave early.

The title also extends the biggest year of Dunstone’s career. He is the reigning Brier champion, having won his first Canadian men’s championship in 2026 after years of near misses, and the Masters defence gives the Winnipeg rink a Grand Slam trophy to stack on top of the national one. For third Colton Lott, the win was a second Grand Slam title. For lead Ryan Harnden, it was a ninth.

The Final Turned On One Thin Double

Mouat held the hammer to start, and Dunstone stole the game out from under him anyway. Facing two in the first end, Mouat attempted a soft raise for a single that slid too far, and Dunstone swiped another point in the second as Mouat followed through the port but could not outcount the Canadian rock. Back-to-back steals built a 3-0 lead before Mouat drew to the button for a single in the third.

Then came the shot of the final. After Mouat was slightly heavy on a freeze attempt in the fourth, Dunstone called an ultra-thin double takeout, put the broom down without hesitation and made it clean, scoring three for a 6-1 lead at the break. He shot 94 per cent for the game, and the double was the clearest example of why: a high-risk shot, taken on instantly, and made without a doubt. The Grand Slam’s own highlight package carries the moment as the winning sequence of the final.

Mouat, a 12-time Grand Slam champion, does not fold at 6-1. He regrouped with a runback double for two in the fifth, forced Dunstone to draw for one in the sixth, and hit for two more in the seventh to close to 7-5. That still left Dunstone two up with the hammer coming home, needing only to keep the last end clean. “A lot of it is scoreboard management, right? When you have a five-point lead at the break, you’re just looking at the numbers,” Dunstone said. “It’s like never giving up more than a deuce, always scoring with hammer, we’re going to be in a good spot.” He made his final hit count, and the defence was done, 7-6.

A Spare Stepped In And Left A Champion

The strangest part of the week is who was not on the ice. Regular second Mark Nichols, a new addition to the rink this season, sat out with an upper-body injury, and Colton Flasch stepped in as the spare. Flasch played the whole week, swept the final shot of the championship game, and walked away with the first Grand Slam title of his career.

“I mean, you don’t know what you’re going to get with Flasch stepping in, new guy coming to the team,” Dunstone said. “He was great all week, had a lot of fun with him. Obviously, missing Mark on a day like today for sure, but I can’t wait to have him back and be able to do this with him as well. Just proud of the win, resilient, take an early lead against a really good team, it’s hard to hold on to it. It came down to the last rock and fortunately, we had hammer.”

The supporting numbers back the skip up. Harnden made 94 per cent of his shots at lead, setting up end after end, and Dunstone called it one of the best lead performances the team has ever seen. The battle of the thirds was just as tight: Lott and Scotland’s Robin Brydone each shot 88 per cent, with Brydone’s shot-making a major reason Mouat climbed back from five down to force Dunstone to clear two stones with his final rock in the eighth. Dunstone collected $42,000 from the prize purse; Mouat’s Stirling-based rink, with Brydone, second Bobby Lammie and lead Hammy McMillan, earned $34,000.

Beating Mouat At Last, And What Comes Next

This final had a debt attached to it. After Dunstone won the Masters last season, Mouat beat him in back-to-back Grand Slam finals, at the Tour Challenge and at GSOC Tahoe, and Sunday was Dunstone’s first win over the Scot in a Grand Slam final after two straight losses. “Obviously, the more we do this, the better. This is kind of the bar we set for ourselves every week,” Dunstone said. “Bruce got us twice last year, so to nip that in the bud and get the win on him this time, it definitely means that much more for sure.” He added that the route mattered as much as the result: “We went through the gauntlet between Schwaller last night and Mouat today. That’s exactly how you want to do this.”

The women’s final in Medicine Hat was nothing like the men’s. Sweden’s Isabella Wrana routed Japan’s Miku Nihira 11-2, scoring three in the first end and three more in the third and coasting from there. It was Wrana’s second Grand Slam championship, after the Players’ Championship in 2023, and she earned $34,000. Nihira’s crew took home $26,000 from its first Grand Slam final appearance.

The Slam tour moves east next, to the GSOC National in Sydney, Nova Scotia, from November 17 to 22. Dunstone will get there as the man who owns the Masters: three titles at one event, the last two of them back to back, and the latest sealed with a spare at second, a 94 per cent skip performance, and a five-point lead defended one careful end at a time against the most decorated active men’s skip in the game.