Road to the 2024 TELUS Cup: Pacific Regional

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 packages, the expansion has been important.

Let’s put that development into perspective: Last 12 months, Vernon had U9, U11 and
U15 women’ groups. This 12 months, the affiliation has women’ groups in each
division besides U18, which will probably be working subsequent 12 months 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 quantity 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 12 months, the GVMHA was capable of run a ladies’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
doable,” Bathurst says. “We’ve acquired extra ladies teaching in our group
now than we’ve ever had.”

Several members of the Thompson-Okanagan Lakers, host staff of this 12 months’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 staff 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 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 wished to begin enjoying.

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

Hailey Sitter has all the time beloved working with youngsters and acquired 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 staff in Lumby.

“I heard that there was a few women 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 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 12 months, 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 stay up for displaying
as much as the rink,” she says.

When Sitter first began enjoying hockey, her staff was coached by three
ladies, together with her mother. She didn’t notice the affect of that have
on the time, however reflecting again, Sitter says she seen them as function
fashions.

“As I acquired older and I began to see ladies coaches, I actually regarded as much as
them and I actually wished to work as laborious as I may to get to the place they
have been and to be pretty much as good as they have been,” Sitter says. “I believe that’s actually
cool that I can do this for a few of these youthful women.”

It’s a busy schedule to steadiness college 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 all my youthful youngsters, it
doesn’t all the time 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 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 ideal feeling to know that I’m serving to create the subsequent era 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 is going to end her time as a Laker competing for Canada’s
Women’s U18 National Club Championship on dwelling 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 very best stage
of hockey on an novice 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 subsequent era of
ladies’s gamers within the Okanagan and we’re actually enthusiastic about it.”