THEY were underdogs going up against a team that had been virtually crowned champions before they had set foot on the ice. But in the early hours of yesterday, Scotland's men's team saw off hot favourites Canada 8-6 to bring home the Ford World Curling Championship title.
The Scots beat the hosts and title holders in a nerve-jangling final that went down to the wire at the Moncton Arena in New Brunswick.
Because of the competition's format, it was the third time Scotland had beaten Canada in the last three days of
the competition – and it was sweet revenge after losing to them in last year's final in the United States.
Scotland skip David Murdoch said: "This is like a fairytale – somebody pinch me. It's just unthinkable. If you'd told me at the start of the week that I'd beat Canada three times to win it, I wouldn't have believed you. It's just perfect. There is no better feeling than winning in Canada, the audiences are so good and it's an amazing feeling."
While he has now become the first Scottish skip to win two world titles, Murdoch's major target is next February's Winter Olympics in Vancouver: "This is a perfect set-up for next year's Olympics," he admitted, "but I wouldn't go so far as to say we're favourites. We had a good win today, but Canada will be on home soil again. They'll be the best team there with a home crowd cheering and it will take another almighty effort to overcome that."
And it took an almighty effort for Murdoch and his team of Euan Byers, Pete Smith and Ewan MacDonald to win their crown. Before this event, Canada's "untouchable" defending champion Kevin Martin had gone through a whole year undefeated in championship play – until he came up against the Scots in the final round-robin session. In that game, the Scots carved out an extra-end 6-5 win to show the rest of the world that Martin could be beaten.
Because they finished in the top two round-robin slots, Canada and Scotland faced each other again in the Page Play-off game that gave the winner a direct route to the final. The Scots won that one too, this time by 7-5. Canada then had to beat Switzerland by 7-4 to earn another crack at the Scots in the final.
Unlike in the previous two games, the Scots were rarely in control during the final, but their tenacity and, in particular, good play in the ninth end, when they scored two shots, meant that they were level at 6-6 as the teams went into the final end.
In this end, there was a clutter of stones around the house, with Scotland well-positioned as Martin came to play his first shot. In a controversial move, Martin threw his first stone through the house, fearful of strengthening Scotland's position by mistake. Murdoch then nudged his own stone into a winning position, leaving Martin with a complicated tidy-up that went wrong, handing Scotland the title.
Afterwards, Murdoch said: "We always believed. There's a lot of belief in the team, and the team have a lot of belief in me when I'm playing my shots. We've spent a whole year coming over here to play the top teams in Canada and I think that's starting to show now. We've been looking for that mental toughness. We've been searching for shot-making over the last couple of years and we've been training hard to obtain that."
The win sees the world title return to the home of curling – the first written references to it were made in the records of Paisley Abbey in the mid-16th century.
Over the past decade, the game in Scotland has enjoyed a high profile.
The men's team took the world championship in 1999 and again in 2006, while the sport found probably its widest audience in 2002, when the women's team, led by Rhona Martin, took gold in a gripping final at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
More recently, the Scottish women's team took the world junior championships gold last month. The national wheelchair team has also excelled, taking the world title in 2004 and 2005, and narrowly missing out on gold at the 2006 Turin Winter Paralympics.
Murdoch received his gold medal from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club president, his father, Matt Murdoch.
Colin Grahamslaw, the chief executive of the RCCC, the sport's founding club, said: "It's an amazing result to beat the Canadian team, who hadn't been beaten in championship play for a year.
"Scottish curling is in the spotlight more than ever, and we've got to capitalise on that. The lads deserve all the credit they get and I really do hope the public come out to give them a heroes' welcome when they arrive home."
Scot Hammy McMillan, who won the 1999 world crown, said:
"This was an excellent performance.
Things are looking good now for the next couple of years, with the Winter Olympics coming along."
