Pickerings make U18 worlds a family affair

On the ice, Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team accomplished a three-game
sweep of the United States in its summer time sequence for the primary time since
2007, however behind the bench, the teaching workers was making slightly historical past.

Head coach Courtney Birchard-Kessel and assistants Stefanie McKeough and
Tara Watchorn turned the primary all-women teaching workers within the historical past of
Canada’s ladies’s U18 program. The consequence towards the Americans was
terrific, however the influence the sequence can have on rising ladies’s hockey
goes past the ice.

“We’re in such a good time for women in coaching positions,” says Watchorn.
“With pioneers like Hayley Wickenheiser and Caroline Ouellette, it’s nice
to see that ladies are beginning to get in on the teaching facet now and
there’s a path to creating teaching a profession, which was actually robust earlier than.
It’s actually cool to see that transition the place a wave of gamers who’ve
already had a hockey profession now in a position to transfer into teaching.”

To add to the accomplishment, all three members of the teaching workers are
alumnae of National Women’s Program, having shared the ice collectively at camps
and occasions during the last decade and a half, together with a golden expertise
with Canada’s National Women’s Development Team on the 2011 MLP Cup, the
solely time the three wore the Maple Leaf collectively.

Combined, the three performed 183 worldwide video games; Birchard-Kessel
appeared in three IIHF Women’s World Championships, profitable gold in 2012,
Watchorn was an Olympic gold medallist in 2014 and performed at three ladies’s
worlds, and McKeough was a part of the Canadian contingent on the 2009 IIHF
World Women’s U18 Championship.

So coming again to the nationwide program and having a reunion of kinds behind
the bench meant slightly bit further for the trio.

“Between the three of us, our paths have crossed so many occasions all through
our personal taking part in careers, and we now have plenty of shared experiences and values
we realized alongside the best way,” Watchorn says. “For the under-18 age group,
they’re so younger and for lots of them, it’s their first high-performance
atmosphere. So, for us to have the ability to perceive and anticipate these
stressors and telling them to concentrate on simply being current, having fun with the
time with teammates and making them higher, you’re at all times going to play
higher.”

Watchorn has at all times wished to be a coach. Even throughout a profitable taking part in
profession that included Olympics, ladies’s worlds and hoisting the Clarkson Cup
with the CWHL’s Boston Blades of the CWHL in 2015, Watchorn knew she wished
to cross on the optimistic experiences she’s had within the sport.

“I’m so lucky to be a part of cultures and groups that really modified my
life,” says the Newcastle, Ont., native, who’s the first-ever head coach
of the ladies’s program at Stonehill College, “so my hope is to create that
atmosphere and tradition for different younger ladies who can come by way of and be
impressed [and] challenged, and change into leaders and individuals who influence the
world.”

Although teaching isn’t at all times the plan for gamers, hockey typically finds
a means again. After hanging up her skates after a five-year faculty profession at
the University of Wisconsin (which included an NCAA nationwide title in
2011), McKeough thought teaching was one of many final issues she could be doing
along with her free time.

But the sport ultimately took her to Sweden, the place she was in a position to get a
style of teaching and was bitten by the bug. To this present day, McKeough admits
it continues to shock her each time she walks into the rink as a
full-time coach.

“Hockey players are humans first,” the Carlsbad Springs, Ont., product
says. “I realized by way of teaching that we now have to assist the individual earlier than
serving to the hockey participant, and having the ability to be there for any individual is
one thing that motivates me after I present up on the rink day-after-day.”

As an assistant coach with the University of Ottawa, McKeough will get to work
and study from veteran U SPORTS coaches like Vicky Sunohara (Toronto),
Rachel Flanagan (Guelph) and Gee-Gees bench boss Chelsea Grills. They’ve
been in a position to set examples for McKeough beforehand as a participant and now as a
coach.

“Vicky was really one among my coaches at my first U18 camp and Rachel was
an assistant coach throughout one among my years on the under-22 crew, so now that
I get to work with them, I’ve been in a position to achieve a extra deeper respect for
what they do as coaches.

“By having these ’If you see it, you might be it‘ situations, I’ve been in a position
to proceed to construct these relationships with different coaches and the
gamers.”

The development and visibility of ladies in teaching and management positions
continues to develop. Just this summer time, Hockey Canada alumna Jessica Campbell
was employed as an assistant coach by the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds,
longtime nationwide crew defenceman Laura Fortino took on the identical position with
the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs, and 2022 Olympic gold medallists Marie-Philip
Poulin and Rebecca Johnston took on participant growth roles with the
Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames, respectively.

“Diversity in leadership is so valuable,” Watchorn says. “For individuals to
convey totally different backgrounds, and to have the ability to relate to the gamers, it’s
simply so necessary. If you see it, you might be it.”