The girl who would be queen was born in Biggar, Saskatchewan on June 11, 1963. She was the third daughter of Art and Shirley Schmirler. You could say Sandra was born to be a curler and there is some argument to support it. Both Sandra’s parents played and her grandparents did as well. It was clear from early on that Sandra had an incredibly strong competitive drive to put it simply she hated to loose. Something else was clear, she liked curling and it would eventually become a lifetime love.
Early on in her career she was being noticed by curlers like Marilyn Bodogh – Canadian and World champion. Bodogh was impressed by the deep desire to win in Sandra. That competitive nature would sometimes work against Sandra, when she let her anger get the best of her. Her dream was to wear the green of Saskatchewan’s provincial team but desire to win took her a lot further. By the 1990-91 curling season, Sandra now married had formed her own team and anger management would be even more crucial if Sandra wanted to keep and develop a winning chemistry for her team. Sandra and her team would go on to win three Canadian and World Championships from 1991 to 1997, something that up to that point had never been done. She topped that off by leading her team to the first-ever Olympic gold medal in women's curling in the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan.
Things in her personal life were not working out as well as she’d hoped. Her marriage to husband Del Peterson had ended in separation by the spring of 1992 and ending in divorce one year later. It was a devastating time for her, Sandra had always worked very hard to succeed and this was failure staring her in the face. She was given another chance when she met Shannon England in 1993. They hit it off and in 1996 were married. In September of 1997 Sandra and Shannon had their fist child Sara. Just before her Gold Medal performance in Nagano she commented to a reporter, “"I believe I've got it all...I've got everything I could possibly want in life right now. I have a daughter that I cherish. A husband that I love dearly and the sport of curling that has given me so much. I've got it all. I couldn't ask for anything more."
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It would be only a few years later that she would face the greatest challenge of her life in the form of cancer. First her father died of cancer of the esophagus and then six months later Sandra found out she also had cancer. She died in March 2000 after a valiant struggle with the disease. She left two daughters Sara and Jenna and her husband Shannon. Not long afterwards a number of things were undertaken to celebrate Sandra’s life and her contribution to curling including the formation of The Sandra Schmirler Foundation as a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to help families with children challenged by life threatening illnesses. In the end Sandra had not only become the Queen of Curling but Queen of our hearts as well.
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