Rivalry Series Recap – December 19

“It’s an ideal alternative to see what’s doable and what may be
achieved.”

For the primary time because the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship, Canada’s
National Women’s Team returns to Kamloops this week for a Rivalry Series
matchup towards the United States. Not solely is the sport showcase the most effective
of ladies’s hockey on the iceon the ice, however it additionally offers the City of
Kamloops a possibility to point out how girls’s hockey has grown within the
group.

Six years after the United States edged Canada 1-0 in extra time within the gold
medal sport, Norm Daley, co-chair of the 2016 girls’s worlds, is feeling the
similar degree of pleasure because the world’s greatest come to the Interior.

“We’re seeing quite a lot of responses from the younger girls in hockey who’re
within the Rivalry Series,” says Daley, who can also be president of the
Western Hockey League’s Kamloops Blazers. “These are the celebs that they
look as much as and it’s actually thrilling to see that they’ve their position fashions
from Team Canada coming into their group.”

The Rivalry Series sport would be the third worldwide hockey occasion in
Kamloops within the final eight years; along with the ladies’s worlds, the
metropolis was host of the 2014 4 Nations Cup, when Canada claimed its 14th gold
on the match that additionally included the United States, Sweden and Finland.

At each alternative the Kamloops hockey group has not failed to point out
its on-going help for ladies’s hockey. With a close-to-capacity crowd
anticipated for the Rivalry Series, to be performed on the Sandman Centre, house
of the Blazers, Daley says the curiosity within the sport is evident.

“The group is basically speaking about how essential the video games are for
women and girls to see what may be achieved,” he says. “Once the
tickets have been launched, they have been snapped up instantly and exhibits that
girls’s hockey may be very a lot alive.”

The legacy of the Rivalry Series, 4 Nations Cup and IIHF Women’s World
Championship goes past the on-ice product itself. Over the years, the
occasions have introduced pleasure and drawn the eye of younger ladies to
hockey, boosting registration within the metropolis.

Nathan Bosa, board chair for the Kamloops Minor Hockey Association, remembers
the 2016 girls’s worlds, and though it was earlier than his time with the KMHA,
he remembers how impactful it was for younger gamers and followers, like his
daughter, to expertise. Over the years, he says the expansion and alternative
for ladies’s hockey has continued to open doorways for gamers to proceed
their taking part in careers.

“Over the final couple of years, the sport has grown and we’ve revamped
issues to offer extra sources to our leagues,” says Bosa. “Our governing
affiliation, [the Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association], has put
collectively a transparent program to maintain the ladies taking part in at a excessive degree and provides
them a path ahead.

“By operating regional groups, we’ve been capable of open the borders to have
feminine gamers come from Clearwater or Logan Lake and broaden our catchment
for groups. The morale increase these occasions offers to the house associations is
nice, as a result of the momentum of the occasion will get individuals desirous about new
concepts to proceed rising.”

Like Daley, Bosa has felt a way of pleasure throughout main as much as the
Rivalry Series. With the chance for the group to see Team Canada,
the reigning Olympic and world champions, it’s an enormous alternative to observe
the most effective on this planet.

On Thursday, Bosa and his daughter will probably be within the Sandman Centre for the
sport, however this time, will probably be his daughter taking him to see what he
proudly says is “her thing, and she’s very excited to take me with her.”

“It inspires everybody,” Bosa says. “To go and see these gamers on the
ice, they play with such coronary heart and grit, the youthful ladies watch this and
actually offers them a lift in confidence and exhibits what’s doable for
them.”