Ontario Red wins gold at 2023 National Women’s U18 Championship

Jessie Olfert and Jane Kish can nonetheless keep in mind the roar of the group when
they stepped on the ice on the Ovintiv Events Centre. Hundreds of scholars
cheering on British Columbia and Saskatchewan because the groups competed on the
2012 National Women’s Under-18 Championship.

“It’s the first time as a player that you’re experiencing a loud barn,”
Olfert says. “Dawson Creek undoubtedly confirmed as much as fill the barn and cheer
us on, which was fairly superb.”

Eleven years later, Olfert and Kish are returning to the Peace Region—this
time as members of the Alberta teaching workers. Although greater than a decade
has handed, the reminiscences are nonetheless vivid for each girls.

“I’m from Weyburn, Saskatchewan, initially, after which Dawson Creek had about
across the identical inhabitants,” Kish says. “I keep in mind getting there and I used to be
like, ‘This feels like a nice, close-knit community.’”

The high quality of the hockey and the power to attach with gamers from different
provinces additionally stand out of their reminiscences.

“It was the fastest hockey that I had played up to that point,” Olfert says.
“I keep in mind pondering, ‘This is a lot enjoyable. I need to discover extra ways in which I
can proceed to be concerned with this kind of high-level recreation.’”

“The connections that I constructed and the expertise that I had—it was very neat
to be part of,” Kish provides.

With that zeal for high-level depth hockey ignited in Dawson Creek,
each Kish and Olfert pursued enjoying the sport in college. Kish completed
her profession on the University of Regina because the all-time chief in wins (38)
and shutouts (15). Olfert performed on the University of Alberta for 3
years earlier than she hung up her skates.

“I referred to as a previous coach of mine, who was a very massive mentor in my life, and
I requested her, ‘After you leave your sport, what do you do with your life?’
And she stated, ‘You simply find another way to get involved in it.’”

For each Kish and Olfert, teaching was a wonderful strategy to keep linked to
the sport they love in a brand new capability. When Olfert made the choice to not
play a fourth yr with the Pandas, her coach Howie Draper helped her discover
her first teaching place to get her foot within the door.

After finishing a kinesiology and training diploma, Kish was occupied with
balancing substitute instructing and goalie coaching after college when she
was introduced with the proper job alternative on the South Alberta Hockey
Academy in Medicine Hat.

“It was the best of both worlds,” she says. “It’s allowed me to be an
assistant coach and have my goalie stuff, but additionally doing all of the enjoyable
instructing stuff in class.”

For Kish and Olfert, turning into a coach has been top-of-the-line issues that
has helped the transition into life after enjoying high-level hockey.

“Ending the enjoying profession, generally an athlete would possibly get misplaced a bit of
bit,” Olfert says. “It seems like part of your life has form of ended,
which it has. So, harnessing all that vitality into one thing else, that may
be extremely rewarding.”

“I love it because I’m learning every day,” Kish provides. “Seeing the game in
this gentle has been very cool for me as a result of I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, when
I used to be a participant, I didn’t even take into consideration this.’ But now I’m seeing all
these various things and it’s a distinct viewpoint. That has been very
thrilling for me.”

Despite competing in opposition to one another at U18 Nationals and in U SPORTS, Kish
and Olfert didn’t formally meet till each have been introduced on to Alberta’s
teaching workers forward of the 2023 match. With the expertise enjoying in
the match themselves, it supplies a novel perspective for teaching
Alberta’s athletes.

“I remember going in there and being very nervous,” Kish says about enjoying
within the match. “You need to do exceptionally nicely as a result of you have got all
these expectations using on you.”

“Sometimes I discover your athletes neglect that you just had a childhood, that you just
grew up as nicely and also you’ve been by means of a few of these issues,” Olfert provides.
“They can look to you and be like, ‘What do we do here?’ And you really
have a solution as a result of you realize the place their toes are, you realize what’s going
by means of their heads.”

The return to Dawson Creek for Kish and Olfert is stuffed with nostalgia. It’s a
acquainted metropolis, a well-recognized rink and a well-recognized schedule for what’s in retailer
for every group in the course of the week. As two of 1,578 ladies who’ve competed in
this match since 2001, Kish and Olfert hope Team Alberta can embrace
this chance and be actually current on this second.

“This match is a reminder of what all these ladies have gone by means of to
get right here. Now, they get to take pleasure in it and expertise it similar to Jessie and I
did 11 years in the past,” Kish says.

“Life has modified quite a bit within the final 11 years, nevertheless it’s additionally been a whole lot of
actually good adjustments and a whole lot of private development,” Olfert says. “This is
actually cool to have a full circle second of returning again to Dawson Creek
and attending to relive it, however in a really totally different approach.”