Sandra Schmirler
Ernie Richardson
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Ernie Richardson leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Sandra Schmirler at #3 and Ernie Richardson at #8.
The case for Sandra Schmirler
The most influential women's skip the sport has produced, and the reason curling had a face when it entered the Olympic programme. Schmirler's Regina rink of Jan Betker, Joan McCusker and Marcia Gudereit won the Canadian championship and then the world title in 1993, 1994 and 1997, a treble no other women's team had managed, and in 1998 she skipped Canada to the first Olympic women's gold at Nagano, finishing 8-1 and beating Denmark in the final. Her shot-making under pressure, particularly a series of last-stone doubles in Canadian playoffs, is still used as coaching footage. She died of cancer in March 2000, aged 36, less than two years after the Olympic title. The foundation established in her name has since raised millions for neonatal intensive care units across Canada, and the Sandra Schmirler Foundation broadcast remains a fixture of the Canadian curling calendar.
The case for Ernie Richardson
The first international dynasty and the team that set the technical template for everyone who followed. Richardson skipped a rink of his brother Garnet and cousins Arnold and Wes from Regina to four Briers and four Scotch Cup world championships in 1959, 1960, 1962 and 1963, a period in which the international championship was effectively a Canadian export. Their 1959 Brier win made them the youngest team to take the title at that time. What made them historically important was method rather than results: the sliding delivery, the willingness to play takeouts as a matter of course rather than as a last resort, and a level of practised consistency that European teams did not yet have. Richardson wrote several instruction books that carried that method abroad, and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1978.