SHARING a distinctive name with a father who has been a world and five-time European champion has ensured that Hammy McMillan has had to live with considerable expectation from the first time he competed on a curling rink.

It is, then, to his benefit that the 25-year-old from Stranraer is blessed with a rather sunnier disposition than his father who was, McMillan jr admits, known to be a tough customer to play against and with.

“I would agree with that, but what happened on the ice stayed on the ice,” is his summation of his old man’s approach to the sport. “As soon as he was finished it was forgotten about and it was upstairs to the bar, but he was a hard task-master on the ice and the guys who played with him would say that. Even now he still expects the best out of his teams and expects everybody to be playing to the best of their ability.”

That attitude came across in his approach to nurturing the next generation too.

“I remember days when he coached us as juniors, but dad was never a coach,” McMillan reports, smiling broadly at the memory. “But he always wanted the best for me and he’s so proud of what I’ve done this year and when I won my first Scottish Championship with Tom Brewster in 2016. He’s just so happy for what I’m doing in curling and the fact I’m able to do a few of the things he’s done and go to Europeans and World Championships.”

Establishing himself in his own right as a curler has changed the nature of how they discuss the sport.

“I know the game’s changed completely [but] I still listen to him because he still knows the game and we chat a lot about curling,” said McMillan. “After games we will talk about situations and he’ll maybe say ‘you should have done this’ or asks why we did something to get my take on it, but nowadays we’re usually on the same page which wasn’t always the case.

“Now with me knowing the game better we can talk about different situations. He’s got a wealth of experience and not a lot of people know the game better than him.”

Where McMillan sr was one of the great skips of his generation, his son has a different role as a specialist lead who has been a Scottish champion in two of the past three seasons with completely different sets of team-mates and he sees his role in terms of team dynamics rather differently too.

“My team know me as a very social guy. I enjoy chatting, I can talk the hind legs off a donkey,” he says. “It’s one of the things I work on in the team quite a lot is being smiley and energetic. My role in the team is to make sure everyone’s enjoying it out there and if things are getting tough it’s my responsibility to make sure I keep it light-hearted and that we remember what we’re there to do, but that it’s a fun game.”

It has not been too hard to keep smiles on the faces of Team Mouat this season admittedly, a haul of eight wins in eight finals since they were formed just last summer, including a historic first when they became the first Scottish men and Bruce Mouat became the youngest skip, to win one of the sport’s biggest titles at a Canadian Grand Slam event, representing an extraordinary haul.

Even when they have had weekends off Mouat – playing mixed doubles - and their third, Grant Hardie – at the World Mixed Championships - have claimed further titles and along with second Bobby Lammie another who, like McMillan and Hardie, hails from Stranraer, they consequently head to the World Championships which get underway on Saturday in Las Vegas, feeling very much their own men.

“Yeah, my dad’s done amazing things, but I’ve said for the past few years, it’s my career moving forward now and I want to have the best career possible for me,” McMillan affirmed.

“It would be nice to emulate what he’s done winning World Championships and five Europeans, etc, but for me it’s about my career.”