Road to the 2024 Esso Cup: Regina Rebels

Two years in the past, the Greater Vernon Minor Hockey Association (GVMHA) determined
to make rising girls’s hockey a precedence. Thanks to initiatives like Esso
Fun Days and training packages, the expansion has been important.

Let’s put that development into perspective: Last yr, Vernon had U9, U11 and
U15 ladies’ groups. This yr, the affiliation has ladies’ groups in each
division besides U18, which might be working subsequent yr as soon as the U15 gamers
graduate—an estimated development of 100 extra ladies lacing up their skates within the
area.

“It’s getting to a degree now that the amount of ladies actually helps an
elite stream of hockey growth, which for us is absolutely the primary time
we’ve had it,” says Kevin Bathurst, director of hockey operations for the
GVMHA and co-chair of the 2024 Esso Cup.

Thanks to a grant final yr, the GVMHA was capable of run a girls’s coach
growth program in the summertime, particularly concentrating on the U15 age group.

“[The U15 group is] a fairly passionate group of fairly good gamers, and
[we’re trying] to create a pathway for them to remain within the recreation so long as
potential,” Bathurst says. “We’ve obtained extra girls teaching in our neighborhood
now than we’ve ever had.”

Several members of the Thompson-Okanagan Lakers, host crew of this yr’s
Esso Cup, are actively teaching youthful groups of their area. Lily Roberts,
a four-year veteran of the Lakers, has been teaching for 3 years and
at the moment works with a U13 crew in Vernon.

“I really wanted to get into coaching just to change perspectives,” Roberts
says. “[Growing up,] if I had that lady to look as much as, I’d really feel a lot
extra comfy studying and asking questions, and I’d really feel extra inclined
to do what the coach is saying.”

Roberts determined to pursue teaching for a full season after being invited to
assist at a hockey camp over the summer season. The 17-year-old reached out to see if
she might coach the upcoming season and it labored out that her youthful
sister needed to start out taking part in.

“At the start, she was sort of hesitant listening to her sister as her
coach, however after time, I feel she thinks it’s actually cool to have me out
there,” Roberts says.

Hailey Sitter has at all times liked working with children and obtained into teaching by
aiding with summer season camps. A sophomore member of the Lakers, the
16-year-old is an assistant coach with a U7 crew in Lumby.

“I heard that there was a few ladies combating having enjoyable out on
the ice out in Lumby, so I figured that I’d go and spend a few ice
occasions with them to see if I might hopefully change that and assist them have
some enjoyable,” Sitter says. “That became me each Wednesday going out and
teaching them.”

Sitter has been teaching for nearly a yr, and it’s the enjoyment on her gamers’
faces when they’re having enjoyable and enhancing their expertise that retains her
passionate to be a coach.

“To me, if the youngsters are having enjoyable, they’re going to sit up for exhibiting
as much as the rink,” she says.

When Sitter first began taking part in hockey, her crew was coached by three
girls, together with her mother. She didn’t notice the impression of that have
on the time, however reflecting again, Sitter says she seen them as function
fashions.

“As I obtained older and I began to see girls coaches, I actually appeared as much as
them and I actually needed to work as onerous as I might to get to the place they
had been and to be pretty much as good as they had been,” Sitter says. “I feel that’s actually
cool that I can do this for a few of these youthful ladies.”

It’s a busy schedule to steadiness faculty work, Lakers practices and training,
however Roberts and Sitter credit score time administration and never procrastinating to
keep organized. Having the chance to see the sport from a training
perspective has additionally opened up a brand new method to view the sport as a participant.

“I’ve observed after I’m explaining one thing to one in every of my youthful children, it
doesn’t at all times click on the primary time,” Sitter explains. “When I’m explaining
it, I’m additionally breaking it down extra. I’m explaining it less complicated, which I’ve
observed that helps me after I go to do that talent in my observe.”

Lily Roberts holding the Outstanding Female Leadership Award. Photo credit score: GVMHA

Through her dedication to recreation, Roberts turned the primary recipient of the
Outstanding Female Leadership Award from the GVMHA, an award lately
created to proceed to encourage the expansion of the ladies’s recreation within the
area.

“I am super grateful to be the very first recipient of it,” Roberts says.
“It’s an awesome feeling to know that I’m serving to create the following era of
girls’s hockey gamers, particularly in Vernon.”

With the 2024 Esso Cup being hosted in Vernon from April 21-27, Roberts is
ecstatic that she’s going to end her time as a Laker competing for Canada’s
Women’s U18 National Club Championship on residence ice earlier than she begins on the
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) within the fall.

“I’ve always dreamed of being in the Esso Cup when I was little,” Roberts
says. “It’s so crazy that it’s happening here in my hometown.”

The event can be one other alternative to proceed to develop the ladies’s
recreation within the Okanagan.

“To have these younger gamers have the chance to see the best stage
of hockey on an newbie hockey by way of minor hockey in our nation, I
assume it’s solely going to extend the variety of registrations throughout the
board,” Bathurst says. “It’s an thrilling time for the following era of
girls’s gamers within the Okanagan and we’re actually enthusiastic about it.”