Brandon company creates clothes for elite curlers

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This article was published 01/12/2016 (3262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The threads that many of Canada’s greatest curlers are donning at Westman Place this week carry a unique Brandon flair.

Of the 14 teams participating in the Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling, 10 are wearing on-ice jackets and shirts produced by Brandon-based Dynasty Apparel.

Team Jacobs, McEwen, Jones, Homan, Einarson, Sweeting and Carruthers to name a few.

Trailing off in his listing of teams that are wearing their product, Dynasty Apparel co-owner Faron Asham gave up, laughing, “It’s probably easier to say who’s not wearing it!”

These are only some of the approximately 250 curling teams worldwide that are wearing the company’s Brandon-created gear.

“It’s an amazing feeling to have so much support from my colleagues out on the ice,” Dynasty Apparel co-owner Colin Hodgson said Wednesday during a break as lead for the team skipped by Reid Carruthers.

“We’re trying to make our athletes look and feel like athletes and be comfortable out there in how they look and how they feel.”

Teammate Braeden Moskowy, Team Carruthers’ third, said that the key to good on-ice apparel is being lightweight, flexibility and its ability to provide good play for their sponsors.

Sponsorships are key to affording the time-consuming and financially draining task of being a professional curler, Hodgson said, noting that year-round training and eight months of travel costs a lot, and sponsorships help fill this financial gap.

Dynasty Apparel started up last curling season as an offshoot of Brandon-based Tri-Star Screenprinting and Embroidery — a joint effort of Hodgson and Asham. They found a market for on-ice curling apparel, took a shot with Hodgson linking them with prospective clients the world over, and before long their gear was visible in some fairly significant bonspiels.

It was a meteoric rise, Ashman reflected on Wednesday, citing this week’s event in Brandon as a real turning point as many of the nation’s greatest curlers — participating in one of the largest bonspiels of the year — are wearing their product.

While they’ve accomplished a significant feat within what many business owners would consider a short period of time, it’s not a result of luck, Asham clarified, pointing to the hard work over the past year-plus it took to get to this point.

Hodgson’s role as a nationally renowned curler helped, he said — a role that helped the two get their ideas and products out to an international market.

A shipment of on-ice apparel was just recently sent to a team in Switzerland, he said, noting that everything is made in Brandon by a team of staff members that peaks at about six when they’re into the thick of things early in the curling season.

Asham won’t say what material the on-ice apparel is comprised of, nor will he share what, exactly, sets their product apart from their competitors. These are trade secrets, he said, explaining that everything they do comes as a result of frank conversations with players.

And these conversations are pretty blunt, Hodgson said, adding that this level of honesty has helped them create the best possible product.

Not that they’re perfect, he clarified, explaining that one can always aspire toward something greater as they continue to learn from their clients.

Dynasty Apparel’s early success comes down to reliability, Asham said.

“If we tell you a timeline ,we’ll get it done in that timeline.”

Curlers have more pertinent things to worry about than where their logo goes or whether they’ll have their gear in time for bonspiels, he said — stressors that can easily intensify as sponsors are added or drop off at the last minute and apparel design has to restart from square one.

“It’s just juggling those issues among 250 teams across the world,” Asham said, playfully shrugging off the magnitude of their work.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkePA