Memories on ice
Trip of a lifetime for Rankin female hockey players
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 17, 2014
RANKIN INLET
A group of 15 young female hockey players returned to their home community of Rankin Inlet after living the dream in Calgary, Alta., this past month.
The Rankin Inlet girl's hockey team was led in its four-game series by Evelyn Autut, left, Joanna Anawak and Joy Angetsiak in Calgary this past month. - photo courtesy of Mikki Adams |
The girls travelled to Calgary to participate in Canadian female hockey icon Hayley Wickenheiser's Canadian Tire Wickenheiser World Female Hockey Festival from Nov. 27 to 30.
The event is commonly known as Wickfest, and the Rankin girls owe a huge debt of gratitude to their coach, Mikki Adams, for making it happen, as well as Canadian Tire for funding their participation.
Adams said the festival was an incredible experience, and the Rankin girls had a blast.
She said Wickenheiser spent a great deal of personal time with the Rankin players.
"They spent an entire Thursday morning with Hayley (Wickenheiser)," said Adams. "She was just wonderful with the girls, who all received a complete set of brand new hockey equipment.
"Hayley made sure the gear fit each girl properly, and that included taking anyone whose gear wasn't right to SportChek to make sure they had a proper fit.
"She even cut the sticks for any of the girls whose stick was too long."
Adams said Wickenheiser is a great individual with a lot of enthusiasm for what she does.
She said the four-time Olympic gold medallist is a total role model for the girls.
"She's really down to Earth and doesn't have any ego whatsoever. She talked one-on-one with the girls a lot and was a good inspiration for them.
"She kept telling them to continue hockey, and sports brings a group together as one, and, once together, that group becomes a team.
"She spent a lot of time talking about the benefits of sports in addition to playing the game."
Adams said the Rankin girls played against a midget group made up of 17-year-old farm girls.
She said they were all big and very fast on the ice.
"We lost the four games we played against them, but we learned a lot and the girls were happy for the experience to attend the event and meet so many other girls.
"We did have four injuries, including one broken ankle.
"It was incredible to get to go into the national team's dressing room, because they don't normally let anyone in there except the players.
"Just the Rankin girls got to go into that room and they were so excited about everything in there."
Joy Angetsiak, 15, said she'll remember the trip to Wickfest for the rest of her life.
She said she couldn't believe how nice of a person Wickenheiser is, and how funny she is to be around.
"Going into that dressing room was awesome, and they warned us right away not to walk on the team logo while we were in there, so everyone was being really careful about that," said Angetsiak.
"The trophy room where they keep all Team Canada's medals and stuff was so cool to be in.
"Getting all new gear and meeting so many other girls was awesome, but I couldn't believe how good the team we played was.
"They did give us a great goalie (Shay Labelle, 17), and that was really cool because she was so good you felt like you were in the game, even though the other girls were really big and fast."
Joanna Anawak, 17, said they spent hours in the dressing rooms and trophy room, but it went by so fast it felt like it was just minutes.
She said Wickenheiser was really nice to them, showing them her Olympic medals and signing a bunch of different things for everybody.
"Playing those girls showed me how far we have to go to reach the point where we can be competitive with a team like that," said Anawak.
"We need more ice time in Rankin and we have to practice even harder than we do now, but we have the talent here to someday be that good."
Anawak said she'll always remember what it felt like to play against more experienced girls from different cities and towns.
She said it was just awesome to be allowed into Team Canada's dressing room, and that's another experience she'll never forget.
"I was a little surprised by how serious they take not walking on the logo, but everyone was super-careful not to. We were the youngest group of players, and the girls we played against never let up on us one bit.
"They were big, strong and fast, but their passing was, really, the strongest part of their game.
"It made us more confident having a goalie as good as we did - we didn't expect that at all - and she made a lot of awesome saves."
