Cherie Piper (born June 29, 1981) is a Canadian former

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

player residing in

Markham Markham may refer to: It may also refer to brand of of clothing which originates from South Africa which saw it's establishment in 1873. Biology * Markham's storm-petrel (''Oceanodroma markhami''), a seabird species found in Chile and Colombia * ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. She was a member of the Canadian national women's hockey team and played for the

Brampton Thunder The Markham Thunder was a professional women's ice hockey team in the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL). From 1998 through 2017, the franchise was known as the Brampton Thunder and Brampton Canadettes-Thunder before relocating from Brampton, O ...

of the

Canadian Women's Hockey League The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...

(CWHL). Piper has won three Olympic gold medals with the Canadian national team in 2002, 2006 and 2010, as well as one world championship title in 2004.

Playing career

She competed for Canada's Under 22 team from 1999 to 2001. In 1999, she competed for Ontario in the

Canada Winter Games Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total ...

. During the

2000–01 NWHL season In the 2000–01 season, the former Canadian National Women's Hockey League championship was won by the Beatrice Aeros team from Toronto. Jayna Hefford of Brampton Thunder had the best goalscoring record. Final standings Note: GP = Games played, W ...

, Cherie Piper played with the

Beatrice Aeros The Toronto Aeros, often called Beatrice Aeros after their primary sponsor, the North York Aeros, and the Mississauga Aeros were a semi-professional women's ice hockey team that played in Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario. The team played its home ...

and finished seventh in league scoring with 37 points. Piper was a member of the Under-22 team in 2002 when she was named to the Olympic team for 2002 Salt Lake City Games ahead of veteran

Nancy Drolet Nancy Drolet (born August 2, 1973) is a Canadian ice hockey player, international public speaker and philanthropist. She is the daughter of Denis Drolet and Viviane Dubé. Nancy has won 6 gold medals for Canada with the Canadian women's hockey te ...

as part of a move to shake up a Canadian team that had lost eight consecutive games to the United States. It was a decision that shocked other members of the team. She recorded a goal and an assist in her first game of the Olympics, and finished the tournament with five points in five games in helping Canada win the gold medal. She played four seasons at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

between 2002 and 2007, scoring 60 goals and 165 assists in 99 games for the Big Green. She missed the end of the 2003–04 season to play with the Canadian national team at the 2004 Women's World Ice Hockey Championships where she won a gold medal. Piper was named a finalist for the

Patty Kazmaier Award The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award is given to the top female college ice hockey player in the United States. The award is presented during the women's annual ice hockey championship, the Frozen Four. The award was first presented in 1998. The awa ...

in 2005. She led Dartmouth in scoring that season with 60 points. She won a second Olympic gold medal in

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

and her 15 points was second to

Hayley Wickenheiser Hayley Wickenheiser (born August 12, 1978) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, resident physician and assistant general manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs. She was the first woman to play full-time professional men’s hockey in a positio ...

(17). A knee injury in her senior year at Dartmouth forced her off of the national team for over a year and caused her to miss the 2007 World Championships. She rejoined the team in time for the 2008 tournament where she won her second silver medal. She was cut from the 2009 team, but gained a spot on the 2010 Olympic team, winning a third consecutive gold medal.

Other

Piper was also a member of the

Canada women's national inline hockey team Canada women's national inline hockey team is the national team for Canada, which participates at the FIRS Inline Hockey World Championships, an event by the Comité International de Roller In-Line Hockey (CIRILH), an organization and disciplin ...

, winning a gold medal at the 2002

FIRS Inline Hockey World Championships The Inline Hockey World Championship is an annual inline hockey tournament organized by World Skate. Prior to the creation of World Skate in September 2017, the championship was administrated by the Comité International Roller In-Line Hockey ...

Personal

Piper was born June 29, 1981 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, the third child of Alan and Christine Piper. She has two older brothers, Michael and Stephen, and followed her brothers in taking up the sport. She was educated in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. Her middle school was Henry Kelsey Senior Public School and her elementary school was Alex Muir Junior Public School. Piper graduated from

Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute (Albert Campbell CI, ACCI or Campbell), initially intended to be known as Sir William Osler Collegiate Institute is a public high school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the former suburb of Scar ...

and majored in sociology at Dartmouth. On June 7, 2018, Cherie married long-time beau, Joe Butkevich, in a ceremony at Memorial Gardens in Butkevich's hometown of North Bay, Ontario.

Career statistics

International

Dartmouth

Awards and honours

*2004-05 All USCHO.com Second Team * Patty Kazmaier Award Finalist, 2005

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piper, Cherie 1981 births Living people Brampton Thunder players Canadian women's ice hockey forwards Canadian women's national inline hockey team players Dartmouth Big Green women's ice hockey players Ice hockey people from Ontario Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2006 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2010 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2002 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2006 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics Mississauga Chiefs players Olympic gold medalists for Canada Olympic ice hockey players of Canada Olympic medalists in ice hockey Sportspeople from Toronto