Sandra Schmirler

Schmirler played many sports as a child, including volleyball, swimming, badminton, and track, but curling was her favorite. Schmirler began curling at a young age, joining the Biggar Curling Club at the age of 12. Even before that, she and her friend Anita Silvernagle threw rocks on the flooded and frozen fields of the Silvernagle farm, and as teenagers, Silvernagle and Schmirler curled together on the rink that won the 1981 Saskatchewan high school curling championships.

Schmirler continued to curl when she moved to Saskatoon to study physical education at the University of Saskatchewan, and by 1984 a rink on which she

Sandra Schmirler

played made it to the Scott Tournament of Hearts, which is the Canadian women's curling championships. She competed on Kathy Fahlman's rink as third in the 1990 Saskatchewan championships, but the rink did not fare well. Disappointed, Schmirler decided to form her own rink. Schmirler, the "skip" or captain, recruited her friend Jan Betker, who had also curled on Fahlman's rink, to be third. Marcia Gudereit became lead, and Joan McCusker second. These four women would remain together as a rink until Schmirler's death.