Jill Officer

Jill Officer (born June 2, 1975) is a Canadian curler from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Officer was born on June 2, 1975, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Her father, John was a former hockey player and is now a coach.

Her mother Leslie, was a sports enthusiast and was trying to get Officer involved in many areas of sports.

Officer took figure skating lessons, played soccer, gymnastics, and baton twirling.

When she was 10, her mother Leslie signed her up for curling in the Highlander Curling Club.

"I was always hanging around a curling club or a hockey rink, so I was bound to take up one of those sports," Jill said in an interview with Active Life Magazine.

Playing second for Jones, along with Trisha Baldwin at third and Dana Malanchuk at lead, the team got into the 1992 Manitoba's junior women's final before losing to Tracey Lavery.

In 1993, Officer won her first title after winning the Manitoba Championships and went off to the 1993 Canadian Juniors.

However, they missed the playoffs with an 8-4 record.

She also won the Canadian Junior Curling Championships in 1994 together with Jones.

In 1994, they won the Manitoba Championships and went off to the Canadian Championships in Truro, Nova Scotia, with Officer at second.

This time, they went for a 7–4 record and defeated Sherry Linton from Saskatchewan 8-5 in the finals.

Ordinarily this would mean a berth in the following year's World Junior Curling Championships, but a change in the ruling by the Canadian Curling Association (CCA) forced the team to play in a playoff the following year for the right to attend, which they lost to British Columbia.

However, the CCA decided to give Jones' team another chance to qualify and put them directly at the semifinals against British Columbia in the 1995 Canadian Juniors and had lost again.

Officer played second for the teams skipped by Jennifer Jones from 2003 to 2018 and while they were juniors.

Together they won six national championships in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2015 and 2018.

Officer's Scotties victories put her in an elite group of three to have won six titles.

The group includes herself, Jennifer Jones, and Colleen Jones.

Officer trekked to Mount Everest base camp in 2006.

Officer is a freelance writer and RBC Olympian, undertaking speaking engagements on behalf of Royal Bank of Canada.

She also writes for The Curling News.

Officer was previously a reporter for the now defunct CKX TV station in Brandon, Manitoba.

She currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband Devlin Hinchey, they have a daughter, Camryn.

Officer studied Communications and Journalism/Broadcasting at Red River College Polytechnic.

Her niece is curler Kristin MacCuish.

Officer was 15 years old when she was playing in the Highlander Curling Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

After one game, she was pulled over by the Coke Machine by Jennifer Jones who had made it into the Canadian Finals, asking her to join the team.

"I was a bit star-struck," Officer said.

The team has also won two World Curling Championships in 2008 and 2018, while going through the later event without a loss on their way to gold.

Officer has played on and off with Jones since she was 15.

In 2008, Officer, along with Jones, Cathy Overton-Clapham and Dawn McEwen won the 2008 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and went on to win the 2008 World Women's Curling Championship.

After a disappointing run at the 2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, the Jones team won the 2010 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and a bronze medal at the 2010 World Women's Curling Championship.

At the end of the season, the team replaced Cathy Overton-Clapham with Kaitlyn Lawes at third.

The Jones team won the 2013 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, representing Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and becoming the first women's team ever to go undefeated en route to their Olympic gold medal.

The team won a gold medal while representing Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Team Jones was the first women’s team to go through an Olympic campaign undefeated.

In 2019, Officer was named the greatest Canadian female second in history in a TSN poll of broadcasters, reporters and top curlers.

She was also named the sixth greatest Canadian curler in history.

During the 2019–20 season, she coached the Tracy Fleury rink which includes her niece Kristin MacCuish.