Sandra Schmirler Biography

1963-2000

Canadian curler

Sandra Schmirler, known as "the Queen of Curling" and "Schmirler the Curler" in her native Canada, dominated Canadian women's curling in the 1990s until her death from cancer in 2000, at the age of 36. She and her team (known as a "rink" in curling parlance) won the Canadian and world champions three times during the 1990s; her team went on to take the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded for curling, at the 1998 Nagano games. Their victories were more poignant because Schmirler and her rink were average women, with husbands, children, and jobs, who curled in their spare time for fun and yet still became the best curlers in the world.