This is the first season that an all-girls hockey team has hit the ice for the Huntingdon Huskies.
There are 12 players including the goaltender, all between the ages of 10 and 13 years old. “Everyone speaks English and French, and we all talk together,” says one player on the team. Many of the teammates have been playing together for a few years, but on mixed teams.
The team is coached by Wescott Duheme and Maude Leduc, and assistant coach Robert “Bob” Laurin.
For Leduc, who has been playing hockey for a long time, it was important to create a girls’ team because she felt it was important to introduce young girls to women’s hockey, and to develop the sport in the area.
“When we play on a girls’ team, we are less shy. We communicate better on the ice now. We do our cheers on the bench, and we cheer on our teammates. We don’t look at the score. It is practice when you play, and when we lose hard, we are still OK,” says the player. “It makes us proud that girls play hockey, and it is fun to see that there are a whole bunch of girls, like a whole league of girls, playing at our age. It’s really cool,” she adds.
The team is really inspired by the players in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL). So much so that the coaches organized a trip to see the Montreal Victoire play the New York Sirens on February 15.
The coaches told the players to bring their helmets because they might be able to have stickers put on them. But when they arrived, the coaches told the team they would be watching the professional team warm-up from the Victoire bench.
“It was really cool to see them up close, and we got to meet them. A lot of players came up and gave us fist bumps, including the goalie. Marie-Philip Poulin said ‘hi’ to us. Anna Wilgren said she liked my pink helmet!” exclaimed the young forward from the Huskies.
Leduc says the experience helped create team spirit and lots of memories. “It showed the team that when you’re passionate and you put in the effort, you can achieve your dreams,” she adds.
*This article was written by a Heritage Elementary Student as part of a partnership between The Gleaner, the Montérégie-West Community Network, and the New Frontiers School Board.