{"id":15205,"date":"2016-09-07T18:05:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T22:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15205"},"modified":"2016-09-07T18:05:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T22:05:29","slug":"sports-hall-of-fame-is-a-family-affair-for-stemmle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/sports-hall-of-fame-is-a-family-affair-for-stemmle\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Hall of Fame is a family affair for Stemmle"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

This November, the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame will be inducting a second Stemmle into its hallowed halls.<\/p>\n

Karen Stemmle, Olympic downhill skier, will join her brother Brian, a member of the 2013 class of inductees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was completely thrilled and honoured when I received the news about being inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame,\u201d said Stemmle, \u201cwith not only my amazing brother, but so many other talented athletes from Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stemmle is this year\u2019s lone inductee into the Athlete category of the Hall. Former Maple Leafs bench boss Mike Murphy, Chicago Blackhawks assistant coach Mike Kitchen, and Sheldon Galbraith, a legendary figure skating coach, were all inducted into the Coaches.<\/p>\n

Like her brother, Stemmle is a downhill specialist, her career highlight coming in 1984 when she competed at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo. She won the Junior Canadian Ski Championships at the age of 17 in Lake Louise, Alberta, earning a handful of top five finishes on the World Cup Downhill circuit.<\/p>\n

Stemmle said she was \u201cthrilled, honoured and humbled\u201d upon hearing of her induction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Brian was among the first group and I\u2019ve always been proud of my little brother\u2019s accomplishments. To join him is amazing \u2013 it warms our hearts to know we\u2019re from such a great town.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stemmle\u2019s history in York Region is a long one: in Karen\u2019s youth, the family moved from King City to Kettleby, where she attended Aurora High School. She bought her first house in Aurora at 25, before moving to Toronto after getting married four years later.<\/p>\n

Though Stemmle retired from professional skiing in 1988, she maintains a presence in the skiing community through camps and events across North America with her former teammate, Lisa Savijarvi. The pair maintained the business on a full-time basis throughout the next two decades, but have slowed down since having kids.<\/p>\n

That is not to say Stemmle has left the sport: all three of her kids ski out of their home club of Georgian Peaks in Collingwood.<\/p>\n

We have an old log ski chalet at the bottom of the hill and our three children are ski racing in the same programs that Brian and I did as children with our parents,\u201d said Stemmle. \u201cThe only difference is that I\u2019m trying to make sure my children won\u2019t become \u2018professional\u2019 ski racers. I know the danger, the traumatic injuries that can happen with the sport. Let\u2019s just say that I\u2019m not encouraging a higher level, but it\u2019s fun to see our children competing for fun in what I believe is the best family sport ever!\u201d<\/p>\n

Stemmle said she is \u201creally looking forward\u201d to this year\u2019s induction dinner, once again emceed by Aurora\u2019s James Duthie of broadcasting fame.
\nNext week, The Auroran will highlight Galbraith\u2019s path into the Hall.<\/p>\n

Held annually at St. Andrew\u2019s College, the ASHoF Induction dinner is one of the most spectacular nights of the year in the Aurora sports community. This year\u2019s dinner will be held on November 2.<\/p>\n

More information can be found at www.aurorashof.ca.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This November, the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame will be inducting a second Stemmle into its hallowed halls.<\/p>\n

Karen Stemmle, Olympic downhill skier, will join her brother Brian, a member of the 2013 class of inductees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2016-09-08-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Xf","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 23:16:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}