Cherie Piper

Ice hockey forward Cherie Piper won three championships in the National Women’s Hockey League with the Beatrice Aeros in 2000, 2001 and 2002 prior to being recruited by Dartmouth College for four seasons with their women’s hockey team. On the international level she had been a member of Team Canada since 2001 and already earned a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Although the 2003 World Championships were cancelled due to the SARS epidemic, Piper took home more gold medals at the 2004 World Championships and the 2006 Winter Olympics. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2007, but her problems were beginning to mount. She had already experienced a serious knee injury after the 2006 Olympics, during her final season at Dartmouth, which caused her to miss the 2007 World Championships. She resumed playing in October 2007 but suffered an emotional setback when her father died of a heart attack in February 2008. Nevertheless she competed at the 2008 World Championships and brought home a silver medal. Needing some time to recover, she moved to Calgary to play with the Calgary Oval X-Treme of the Western Women’s Hockey League, but lost her spot on the Canadian team for the 2009 World Championships. She regained it in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, however, and took home a third gold medal from the tournament.