REGINA — Curling fans in Saskatchewan undoubtedly know Stephanie Schmidt as a long-time competitor on elite rinks in the province, with three trips to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts under her belt and more than a few playoff appearances in the provincial championships.
What fans might not know is that Schmidt is also a pretty darn good clothing designer and illustrator, to the point that her work has been featured numerous times on jerseys worn by teams in the Scotties and Brier, Canadian women’s and men’s national championships respectively.
All that excellent work paid off in an incredible way late last year, when it was announced Schmidt and design partner Shelby Gagnon had their artwork chosen for the Canadian Olympic curling teams headed to Milan Cortina.
Schmidt joined The SportsCage’s Barney Shynkaruk to talk about how it all came about, and the pride she feels seeing her work being worn by some of the best the sport has to offer.
“I got the really cool opportunity to design for the Scotties and for the Brier and for the World Championships, and I knew that if I did a good job of those that I might be able to bid on the Olympic jersey design,” Schmidt said in explaining the initial process. “I was fortunate enough to get that bid, so this has been so cool. To say you get to design the Olympic jerseys, who gets to say that?”
Schmidt’s strong relationship with Curling Canada and curling supply company Goldline helped pave the way to land the Olympic bid, and after that it was a matter of figuring out something that would wow everyone involved and give the players something they'd be proud to wear for their country.
Of course, involving the maple leaf is a simple enough choice, but Schmidt figured something different would add a bit of pop to it all. Enter Thunder Bay’s Gagnon and her unique hummingbird illustration.
“We've all seen the maple leaf, we love it, that's what athletes work their entire career to get the privilege of wearing that on their back,” Schmidt explained. “So it was making sure that we nailed that, but then I thought, ‘Is there something else that we can do to tell stories from the land and tell stories of the athlete's jersey?' That's where we had this really cool collaboration with Shelby Gagnon."
“Shelby illustrated this absolutely gorgeous hummingbird for us, and for me, the hummingbird just nailed it. It could tell the story of the athlete's journey. It's this tiny little bird that you wouldn't expect can travel 20 hours at a time. Shelby also took that as being able to tell stories from the land and ancestors and wish the athletes good luck. It was a match made in heaven.”
It wasn’t a completely easy process, though, as plenty of time and effort went into getting things right, and that included going through a lot of work that might have been perfectly fine but not quite perfect.
“You know the client might not love some of them, so you hope that you do enough research that one sticks and lands, and we did,” Schmidt said, “Shelby and I looked at hundreds of different symbols that were sort of uniquely Canadian and that could tell both the perspective of the athlete and the land. The hummingbird wasn't what we expected to land on, but here we are, and I think Canada has fallen in love with it already.”
So much so that one athlete — team Canada lead Sarah Wilkes — has said that she’s getting a tattoo of the hummingbird to celebrate playing in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
“It’s such a sweet surprise to see it really taking off,” Schmidt said.
The design also comes with the challenges of dealing with the Canadian Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee, both of which have all sorts of guidelines that must be followed to the letter. Getting through those wasn’t an easy process, but when you’re putting together something so prestigious and high-profile, you find a way to make it work.
“There's a lot of hoops to jump through, so actually making it through any of the hoops was miraculous, and I'm surprised we got all of this through,” Schmidt said. “There are some unique (rules) too, things that we learned were very interesting. You can't have your national anthem anywhere on your jersey, and little interesting things like that.”
Designers are gonna design, though, and Schmidt couldn’t help sneaking a few things in.
“At the Scotties and the Brier, I hid cute little Easter eggs inside the jerseys,” she said. “I wrote ‘see thee rise’ on the collar, I thought that was a cute little nod to the athletes and acknowledging their hard work. It was a little dicey whether or not we could have that continue on to the Olympics, so interesting things.”
Fans won’t have to wait much longer to see Schmidt’s curling designs in Olympic action. The mixed doubles round robin — featuring Canada’s Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman — gets underway at 12 p.m. Saskatchewan time on Thursday, February 5 with Canada taking on Italy.
CBC will have complete coverage of all of Canada’s action at the Winter Games, and you can check it all out on CBC.ca.
