From drain pipe to halfpipe: Olympic snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick is a former plumber

Maddy Schaffrick began snowboarding when she was seven. By age 20, she burned out — and became a plumber for a few years. 

What’s happening: She worked at Colorado-based Alpenglow Plumbing and Heating, which serves the Steamboat Springs area, before returning to snowboarding — first as a kids coach, then again as an athlete.

• Schaffrick, now 31, will compete in the women’s halfpipe competition, taking place on Feb. 11 and 12, at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. 

Zoom out: Schaffrick learned “the three rules of plumbing” on her first day, The Athletic reported in a profile: “1. S— runs downhill. 2. Don’t bite your fingernails. 3. Your boss is an a–hole.” 

• “To her, [plumbing] was like a puzzle, something she could solve, and within a few months her boss was dropping her off at job sites, trusting her to replace an old toilet or unclog a drain or fix a busted water heater,” the outlet wrote.
• “Then one day, she dropped a screwdriver down a pipe and spent six hours trying to retrieve it. No luck. Sitting in her parents’ basement that evening, covered in God knows what, she decided she’d had enough. She showed up the next day and turned in her two weeks’ notice. She had no clue what was next.” 

What they’re saying: Alpenglow owner Joe Clynes told Homepros that he moved next door to Maddy’s family when she was around 10 — she became like family to him, and they’re still close. 

• As a plumber, he said, “She wanted to learn. She was curious about everything, and she would go after things the way she always attacks her snowboarding. She wanted to do better and better at it. She was good. She was really good.” 
• He recalls the story of her dropping her screwdriver. “I made her try to get that out for about four hours or so,” he chuckled. 

Between the lines: Clynes said that during a year with heavy snow, he’ll give his three plumbers — one of whom is his daughter — the day off for a six-inch-or-more powder day. 

• “I just let them go. That’s part of living in a ski town,” he said. Most local businesses don’t offer that, he noted, but “I wanted it when I wasn’t the boss, so I realized that people who live here want it, too.”