You would never choose to miss a World Championships.
So having to watch the recent one on TV was hard.
I’ve been to the Worlds seven times and won it. Up until this year the only time I hadn’t been there was when we weren’t able to compete because it was an Olympic year.
I didn’t try to avoid it, though! You should always keep in touch with how your rivals are getting on.
I actually watched a lot of the games and being on the outside looking in has been a good opportunity to reflect on a few things, take stock and set some short-term and long-term goals.
I want to be part of the best team in the world again and I genuinely believe that can happen.
That’s the long-term bit. In the short-term, there are a lot of things to focus on for improvement and one of them is to put the emphasis on my own game.
Of course curling is a team sport, and team dynamics and that sort of thing are important.
But in all the years it has been played, what has never changed is that it comes down to shot-making.
That’s what got me to the top of the sport and hopefully it will again.
There was a phonecall that I took recently that was the perfect confidence-booster after losing in the final of the Scottish Championships.
Sweden’s Team Hasselborg are the best team in the world just now. They’re the Olympic gold medallists and will probably feel that they should have won gold rather than silver in the Worlds the other week.
Anna, the skip, will be playing in the World Mixed Doubles the same week as the Champions Cup, which is the end-of-season tournament for the winners of the major events.
They have asked me to replace her for the week, and I was happy to say ‘yes’.
They said that I was the first person they called, which was really nice to hear.
The event is near the end of April and it will be a good motivation for my practice in the next few weeks.
Together with an event in May for Team Muirhead in Siberia, the Champions Cup will give me the chance to finish the season on a high.
* You couldn’t fail to notice that there has been a change in the balance of power in the sport.
Coming on the back of an Olympics where the Canadians didn’t win a medal in either the men’s or the women’s, they’ve now finished mid-table and out of the medals at the women’s Worlds.
Switzerland took gold, Sweden silver and Korea the bronze.
And that’s after a Continental Cup that Team World won.
I think we all expected Canada to come out strong this year after the fall-out from PyeongChang but this will be another wake-up call.
It’s the men’s next week and there will be a lot of pressure on Team Canada there, for sure.
Scotland’s Team Mouat will fancy their chances, I would think.
