From stage lights to hockey heights

Before the gold medal, the accolades and the numerous hours behind the
bench teaching high-level hockey, Whitney Juszkiewicz was an improv actor
in Vancouver.

“I used to be on stage each Sunday throwing on an perspective, throwing on an
accent, throwing on a persona and going for it,” remembers Juszkiewicz.

Born in Alberta, Juszkiewicz grew up in Edmonton and was deeply concerned in
hockey, attending St. Francis Xavier High Performance Hockey Academy earlier than
enrolling on the University of Saskatchewan, the place she studied liberal arts
and was a member of the Huskies hockey group. She then studied reside
efficiency at Red Deer Polytechnic earlier than embarking on a profession in reside
efficiency.

“I spent nearly eight years within the movie, tv and theatre business
and I did a whole lot of stuff in Red Deer,” Juszkiewicz says. “My associates and I
then began a theatre firm (Slate Productions) that specialised in
improv and sketch comedy like Saturday Night Live or Second City.”

By 2012, Juszkiewicz was dwelling in Vancouver, operating her theatre firm,
performing improv and offering hockey classes to youngsters. It was after certainly one of
these classes {that a} guardian requested if she had ever thought-about teaching
hockey. After pondering it over, Juszkiewicz determined to go for it and shortly
discovered herself behind the bench of a Vancouver-area U11 boys’ group.

“I will need to have accomplished a reasonably good job as a result of in my first yr I gained rookie
coach of the yr,” she says.

Just a little greater than a decade later, Juszkiewicz is now a revered
high-performance hockey coach, having been behind the bench of quite a few
high-level boys’ and ladies’ groups all through Greater Vancouver, and the
proprietor of Fire and Ice Hockey Development. She has held additionally held numerous
coaching-related positions with BC Hockey, briefly served as the manager
director of the Langley Minor Hockey Association, turned an authorized Hockey
Canada Skills Coach and labored as a feminine coach mentor with the NHL
Coaches’ Association throughout that point.

“I put the coaching hat on and I haven’t looked back,” says Juszkiewicz,
who can be a coach within the B.C. provincial program, an affiliate coach with
a U18 Prep group on the Delta Hockey Academy and head coach of a U15 group
with the Vancouver Thunderbirds.

In February, as an assistant coach, Juszkiewicz helped Team BC win its
first-ever gold medal in ladies’s hockey on the 2023 Canada Winter Games.

“It was a privilege to work with these younger ladies, a few of whom went on to
win gold on the ladies’s under-18 world championship,” she says. “It was
simply an unbelievable expertise and it’ll undoubtedly be certainly one of my
all-time favorite reminiscences as a coach.”

Same expertise, completely different position

Although Juszkiewicz is now not performing improv on weekends, she has
discovered that lots of the expertise she developed as an actor have transferred
over into the teaching world.

“[Coaching] hockey is studying the room and understanding that this may occasionally not
be the correct time to essentially drill within the negatives and that everybody wants
somewhat little bit of a bump, they want worth,” she says.

In the appearing world, Juszkiewicz says, a powerful emphasis is positioned on
group, understanding aims and having everybody purchase into their
roles to make sure every thing is profitable, similar to it’s in hockey.

“You have the most effective reveals when everyone understands the target and I
discover the teaching world may be very very similar to that,” says Juszkiewicz, who
continues to dabble in appearing, having appeared as an additional in Mighty Ducks:
Game Changers. “Everyone’s acquired a job, everybody’s acquired a particular expertise that
they’re bringing; there’s a cause why they’re there and if we are able to simply
dig into these specialties and create a pleasant, inclusive, protected setting,
we’ll have a good time.”

Learning and rising

Over the final 4 years, Juszkiewicz has been collaborating in Hockey
Canada’s

Women Master Coach Developer (WMCD) program, an elite initiative that’s offering 38 high-performance ladies’s hockey
coaches with the abilities they should ship clinics and practice future
facilitators and evaluators as a part of an effort to extend the variety of
women-led teaching packages nationwide.

“It’s been in a position to give me that further credibility, that further coaching and
that further steering that I discover I’m now utilizing with all coaches that both
I work with or work for me,” Juszkiewicz says about this system, which she
is about to finish later this yr. “It’s been a beautiful alternative to
perceive how one can work with folks how one can practice them, how are you going to
create a studying setting versus extra of a lecture and simply
hearken to what I’ve to say setting.”

WMCD contributors are nominated by Hockey Canada Members and will need to have
accomplished a number of certification and coaching programs to even be thought-about.
One of the most important advantages of being in WMCD has been connecting with 37
different extremely gifted ladies, says Juszkiewicz.

“I’m one of many solely ladies in my province in this system. If I did not have
the power to attach with different ladies in different provinces, I’d really feel
fairly lonely and like I used to be by myself little island. So, I believe the most effective
half is that you’re getting a few of the prime minds throughout the nation in
phrases of feminine management and feminine hockey getting collectively and that’s
very empowering,” she explains. “It’s extraordinarily empowering to know that
you are not by your self.”

Juszkiewicz’s exhausting work and steady dedication to her craft over the
years has paid dividends. In 2021, she was named BFL Female Coach of the
Year for British Columbia within the Community class, and in 2022 she was
awarded the BC Hockey Development Award for teaching. She says her drive
for steady studying and progress is fueled by her need to proceed
teaching within the recreation she loves.

“If you do not proceed pushing your self to study and develop, you get
stagnant and in the end you get left behind.”