U18 tourney showcases top female hockey talent

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This article was published 24/01/2024 (622 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opportunity only knocks so often, and this week marks such an occasion for the top U18 female hockey players in the province.

The four-day Female World Sport School Challenge tournament, hosted by St. Mary’s Academy, welcomes 16 sport-school and AAA-level squads from Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

The event at Hockey For All Centre begins Thursday with a round-robin among the four divisions and concludes Sunday morning with the gold medal game (10 a.m.). Tickets are $5 per game or $20 for a week pass.

Six other Manitoban squads will join the St. Mary’s Flames, including the Pilot Mound Buffaloes, RINK Hockey Academy and Westman Selects, Winnipeg Ice, Winnipeg Avros and Eastman Selects from the Manitoba Female Hockey League.

For each player, it’s an opportunity to impress dozens of scouts who are expected to take in the action — and more who will tune in via live stream — and a chance to see how their squads stack up against some of the other top competition the country offers.

“A lot of these players — I’m gonna say probably 90 per cent of these players — have already been scouted, whether it was last year or the beginning of this year,” said St. Mary’s head coach Larry Bumstead, who organizes the tournament with his wife Kathy. “So teams that are coming in and schools that are coming to watch these players… this is kind of the comparison — how were (they) in September and where are they now in January?

“It’s a huge event based on the calendar and then also that this is the opportunity for them to get seen in a different venue, different teams, and then Hockey Manitoba is there, Hockey Canada is there recruiting for their provincial teams and national teams, as well.”

Prep programs from the U.S. have participated (and won) in previous years, but none was able to make the trip this year. St. Mary’s won the tournament in 2018, just the second time a team from Manitoba hoisted the trophy (Balmoral Hall, 2014).

Maggie Nicol and Keyauna Robinson-Prefontaine played in last year’s tournament with St. Mary’s. The results weren’t in their favour, but the week left a lasting impression.

“It’s definitely a cool experience seeing a bunch of teams at our home rink at a competitive level,” said Robinson-Prefontaine, the Flames starting goaltender. “It’s a very exciting, big tournament. So it’s a good spot and tournament to show off your skill. It was very exciting for me (last year).”

Nicol and Robinson-Prefontaine hope to play hockey in university. Talks with scouts at the next level have picked up now that they are in Grade 11 and a solid performance this week can only help their case.

“It’s definitely a lot more pressure but it’s always fun to know that you have that opportunity at your fingertips,” said Nicol, a pivot on the blue line. “There is a lot more pressure but it comes with everything we do, especially at the level we play at, so you just have to adapt to it.

“It’s also a lot more than just the scouts in this tournament I think for all of us.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

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