.

Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

WINNIPEG - Two athletes from Fort Simpson helped Team NWT make history at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships.

Sydney Rowe and Anthony Roche were part of the NWT's two teams that both earned identical sixth-place finishes at the championship held in Winnipeg from May 3 to 9. Sixth place is the best finish the male and female teams have had since NWT began competing in 2004.

Sydney Rowe of Fort Simpson waits for the puck while playing on Team NWT at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships in Winnipeg. - photo courtesy of Luke Coadyphoto

Even though sixth place isn't usually something to celebrate, both Rowe and Roche agreed they felt good about the results.

It was "awesome" to make history as part of the men's hockey team, said Roche, who played forward.

"I think we did good for being players from the NWT," he said.

Team NWT faced the nation's best. Ninety per cent of the players from Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec have already been acquired by junior hockey teams, said Roche. Some of the top aboriginal hockey players in the NHL have competed there, he said.

Rowe said she felt "really nervous" going into the competition because she knew how high the other teams' skill levels would be. It was very different from the minor hockey that's played in Fort Simpson, she said.

Both NWT teams proved themselves against the southern teams that had low opinions of our potential, said Rowe who played defense.

"We showed them. We made history," she said.

Both teams had identical records in the round robin with one win, one tie and two losses.

The women's team's first opponent was Southern Ontario.

"We worked hard," said Rowe.

It was a good game but also a wake-up call in terms of the competition they were up against, she said.

The women's first game ended in a 3-0 loss. The NWT women came back to win their next game 2-1 against Eastern Door and the North, a Quebec team, before tying Saskatchewan, 5-5.

The round robin performance put NWT in third place in its division and set the team up for a quarterfinal match against Northern Ontario. After their 4-2 quarterfinal loss, the women played Alberta and lost again 4-1, which put them in sixth place.

Despite the losses, Rowe was upbeat about the championship.

"For the first year, it was really fun," she said.

Rowe, 16, has already started training to prepare for the tryouts for next year's team.

In the male division, Team NWT started with a 5-1 loss to Eastern Door and the North. The team came back with a 7-4 win against B.C., followed by a 6-0 loss to Ontario and a 4-4 tie with Team Atlantic.

After finishing third in their division, as the women had, Team NWT faced Saskatchewan in the quarterfinals. Saskatchewan's male team was the toughest team to play skill-wise, said Roche. They didn't have to play dirty and were able to win the game 9-2 using just their skills, he said.

Team NWT then lost to Alberta 9-3, which led them to finish in sixth place.

"It was awesome," Roche said of the championship series.

Roche, 18, is too old to compete again next year.

The Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT is very pleased with the young men and women's performances, said Greg Hopf, the organization's assistant director.

The Sports Circle took over the hockey team's program last year. Approximately 80 players were identified for each team before the selection process narrowed it down to 17 athletes each.

"It's an absolute privilege and honour to make this team," Hopf said.