One of Red Deer's own will represent Canada in Italy at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Over the weekend, Red Deer's Jocylen Peterman and her husband, Brett Gallant, who now live in Chestermere, punched their ticket to the Olympics in Mixed Doubles curling.
Gallant won bronze in his only Olympic appearance as a member of Brad Gushue's rink at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Peterman, 31, also represented Canada in the 2022 Beijing Olympics in women's curling.
“To be an Olympian once is amazing, but to have the opportunity to do it twice, and also to do it with my husband as a teammate, will be a true privilege, and we just can’t wait to be in Italy next year. We’re excited about the road in front of us, and we will be doing everything we can to prepare ourselves for the Olympics,” said Peterman in a Canadian Olympic Committee press release.
Peterman and Gallant provisionally earned their nomination to the Canadian Olympic Team by winning the 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials on January 4.
They then competed at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Fredericton, New Brunswick from April 26 to May 3, where their sixth-place performance secured Canada’s Olympic spot in mixed doubles curling. Canada was cruising at the event, but lost a heartbreaking 7-5 loss to Estonia, before losing to the U.S.A. in the fifth-sixth place game 8-4.
The performance over the week was still enough to earn them a spot in the Olympics.
“Jocelyn and Brett are superb athletes and even better people, which makes us happy and proud that they’ll be representing Canada in Milano Cortina," said Nolan Thiessen, Chief Executive Officer of Curling Canada.
"In addition to their achievements on the ice, they play a leading role with our Athletes Council and are driving forces for positive change in our sport system. We couldn’t be more excited to have them wearing the maple leaf on the ice in 2026."
Since their debut as a mixed doubles team in 2016, the veteran pair has steadily made their mark on both the national and international curling scenes. They captured silver at the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship and reached the podium at the 2023 and 2024 Canadian Championships, finishing second and third, respectively. At the 2022 Mixed Doubles World Championship, they finished fifth overall. At the 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials, the duo went undefeated, capped off by a 8–7 win over Rachel Homan—who had represented Canada in this event at Beijing 2022—and Brendan Bottcher in the final.
“Since Jocelyn and I started playing mixed doubles, it’s been our dream to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics as teammates, and we’re going to embrace this opportunity. We appreciate that Curling Canada adjusted its qualifying process for mixed doubles in order to provide more time to get ourselves ready for the Games, and we’ll be using that time to the best of our ability to be in peak form in Italy,” said Gallant in a Canadian Olympic Committee press release.
Canada was fifth in mixed doubles curling at the Olympics in 2022, but won gold in the inaugural event in 2018.
Mixed doubles curling will take place February 4 to 10 (Day -2 to 4) in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
In addition to host nation Italy, seven countries qualified for the Olympic mixed doubles tournament based on the Mixed Doubles Olympic Qualification Points ranking, which was determined by combined placements at the 2024 and 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships.
