Wolverines battle through adversity

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This article was published 11/02/2022 (1590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It hasn’t been easy, but the West Kildonan Wolverines varsity girls hockey team has toughed it out and made the most of the 2021-22 season.

According to Derek Birch, a parent who stepped up to coach, the fact there was a season at all was something to celebrate. When his daughter Camille, a Grade 9 defenceman, heard there might not be a hockey team and a coach, she volunteered her father.

“The field I’m in, coaching a hockey team is insane,” Birch, who works in construction and renovation, said. “But I committed to it. Then the second problem was we didn’t have a goalie.”

Grade 10 Janelle Enns volunteered to play net.

“But she’d never played hockey before,” Birch said. “She’s saved the team, starting as a raw rookie. The courage she showed was outstanding.”

Since the start of the season, goaltending duties have been split between Katy Little, who the Wolverines picked up from nearby Garden City, and Enns. Little backstopped the Wolverines for 15 games, posting a 6-9-1 record and a 2.30 goals against average, including a shutout on Oct. 26 versus Dakota. Meanwhile, Enns had control of the crease for eight games, going 4-4 with a 4.06 GAA at press time.

The team itself is a young one, with eight Grade 9 players on the roster, including Camille Birch, who was second on the team in scoring overall, and third in the division for defenders at press time, with 11 goals and 12 assists. Only forward Avery Fyfe had more points for the Wolverines, with 13 goals and 11 assists ahead the club’s Feb. 15 game against Dakota.

“If you’re familiar with Bad News Bears, that’s us,” the first year coach admitted. “But the girls’ work ethic, in practice and games, it’s insane. Sometimes we’ve had only nine skaters. It’s been tough, a full year of adversity. I’m so proud of these girls.”

“I feel like we all want to get better as a team and work as a team together,” said Lexis Bergagnini, a Grade 11 centre and alternate captain for the Wolverines. “We want to go out there and work and have fun.”

From day one, the Wolverines have been focused on a single goal: to be competitive each and every time the team hit the ice.

“That’s exactly what we’ve done,” Birch said. “They’re a bunch of hard-working, competitive players.”

With only two games left before playoffs, the Wolverines 10-7-3 record all but guarantees a top four finish in the seven-club Hire Marketing Division. That success comes down to the commitment the Wolverines have shown since Day 1.

“Our team is full of little girls, we’re all pretty small,” said Bergagnini, who had nine goals and 10 assists and 24 penalty minutes at press time “But we’re all feisty. We get in the net and in front of players. We go for that rebound.”

Depending how the final games play out, West Kildonan is likely to play either Dakota or Westwood in a best-of-three series in the first round of the playoffs.

“We have high hopes of moving on to round two,” Birch said. “We’re targeting a championship, for sure.” For the Wolverines to achieve that goal, the girls will need to keep doing what they’ve done so well all season, Birch added.

“Working hard and working as a team, fighting through everything,” he said. “They never give up.”

“We need to play the game how we normally play,” Bergagnini added. “Crashing the net, getting those rebounds. There’s no ‘I’ in teamwork.”

For complete schedule, results and more, see www.wwhshl.ca

Sheldon Birnie
Managing editor

Sheldon Birnie is the managing editor of the Free Press Community Review. Email him at sheldon.birnie@freepress.mb.ca or call him at 204-697-7112

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