Road to the 2024 Esso Cup: Thompson-Okanagan Lakers

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

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

“It’s getting to some extent now that the amount of women actually helps an
elite stream of hockey improvement, 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 ladies’s coach
improvement program in the summertime, particularly focusing 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
doable,” Bathurst says. “We’ve received extra ladies 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
presently 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 girl to look as much as, I might really feel a lot
extra snug 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 may coach the upcoming season and it labored out that her youthful
sister needed to begin 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 beloved working with youngsters and received into teaching by
helping 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 women fighting having enjoyable out on
the ice out in Lumby, so I figured that I might go and spend a few ice
instances with them to see if I may hopefully change that and assist them have
some enjoyable,” Sitter says. “That changed into 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 bettering their expertise that retains her
passionate to be a coach.

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

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

“As I received older and I began to see ladies coaches, I actually regarded as much as
them and I actually needed to work as laborious as I may to get to the place they
had been and to be nearly as good as they had been,” Sitter says. “I feel that’s actually
cool that I can try this for a few of these youthful women.”

It’s a busy schedule to stability 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 solution to view the sport as a participant.

“I’ve observed once I’m explaining one thing to one in every of my youthful youngsters, 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 easier, which I’ve
observed that helps me once I go to do that ability 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 not too long ago
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 technology of
ladies’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 house 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 also 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 degree
of hockey on an novice hockey when it comes to 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 technology of
ladies’s gamers within the Okanagan and we’re actually enthusiastic about it.”