Only in Canada: A mayor and a skip fall in love over curling
Swift Current Mayor Jerrod Schafer found love on the ice with professional curler Kelly Wood
Romantic stories don't often start with the worlds of municipal government and curling. That was just the combination that helped love blossom for Swift Current's mayor Jerrod Schafer.
Six years ago when Swift Current hosted the Women's World Curling Championships, Jerrod caught the eye of Scottish curler Kelly Wood, now Kelly Schafer.
"I knew a lot of the volunteers as well, and it had kind of come to my attention that one of the competitors on Team Scotland had mentioned something about how she thought the mayor looked all right, so that was the first thing," Jerrod said on CBC's Saskatchewan Weekend.
Kelly doesn't deny that she thought he was attractive.
"As a team we attended the opening ceremonies, and we were walking on the ice and Jerrod, as mayor, was giving speeches. I remember leaning over to my skippies at the time and I said, 'Well, things are looking up girls because the mayor looks hot'," she said with a laugh.
"He was good looking so it became a kind of stand-in joke throughout the week."
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Jerrod said they spoke a few times during the tournament and there was an immediate connection.
"But what do you do?" he asked. "Here's a professional curler that lives halfway around the world."
Kelly flew out the day after the closing ceremonies, but came back a week later just to visit.
"It's not often that you find a connection with somebody, so that was an experience where I just had a hunch that, you know, maybe Jerrod was somebody I'd like to get to know maybe a little bit better," Kelly said.
With support from family back in Scotland, Kelly followed the feeling and moved to Saskatchewan.
"I think people really make a community here and make you feel at home," she said. "That's what warmed me to this place or made me believe that, yeah, I think I could move and make a life here and make a family."
"The fact that everything played out the way it did, that I just happened to be mayor of the city at the time that we hosted a world curling championship," Jerrod said. "Kelly comes to Swift Current; she's maybe looking for something more in her life than curling at that particular time. Five or six years later, look at us now. It's pretty interesting."