Bell has a hankering for hockey

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This article was published 01/02/2021 (1876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She had built her hockey reputation as a conscientious, all-round forward but in the summer before her junior season in college, Ashton Bell was being asked to make a wholesale change.

Had she ever considered a switch to the blue line?

Bell, who had been a forward since her days with the U18 Westman Wildcats, wasn’t crazy about the idea but she listened to University of Minnesota Duluth head coach Maura Crowell make her pitch.

At first there were a few trial runs. Bell skated as a defenceman at a summer camp and then did the same at Team Canada’s September evaluation camp. That’s when the idea started to grow on her.

As a forward, Bell had finished second and eighth, respectively, as a freshman and sophomore in UMD team scoring but she was only scratching the surface. 

In her junior year, her first as a blue-liner, she exploded for career highs in goals (11) and points (32) in 36 games while also leading the Bulldogs with a plus-23 rating.

Bell was also the highest-scoring defenceman in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, named to the conference’s first all-star team and the all-academic team. Her five game-winning goals led the entire NCAA.  

“I didn’t think it was gonna work that nicely but yeah, it ended up being not too bad,” says the 21-year-old Bell with a laugh. “I love it. Last year was like one of my funnest years of hockey and I’m very excited about this year, too.”

Crowell understood a mid-career switch would have been a non-starter for many players.

“We have a close relationship with Hockey Canada over the years and in talking to their head scout Mel Davidson, she had asked us what we thought about having Ashton play D,” remembers Crowell. “We were open to it but really you want the player to be open to it, too. Eventually, we worked our way into having Ashton on the back end last year.”

Even though she had played on the back end during her minor hockey career, Bell’s first camp as a defender with the national team was an eye-opening experience. Yet she adapted quickly.

“The pace was insane, they move the puck so quickly and being on D for the first time I had to learn how to skate backwards fast again and transition quickly,” says Bell. “I had a lot of work to do after that camp but I’m definitely getting better.”

When the Bulldogs opened the 2019-20 season, she was already starting to unlock some secrets of playing the position, drawing an assist on all four UMD goals in a weekend series with Clarkson. 

“I like having a play in front of me and kind of quarterbacking stuff and making plays that way and being able to get the puck out quickly and efficiently and also being able to jump up in the play,” says Bell. “I think I help produce more offence being back there.”

Bell, stationed at centre for most of her first two college seasons, had little trouble learning the job’s defensive responsibilities.

“She’s a natural fit,” says Crowell. “She has a massive offensive side to playing D, so that allows our team to do a lot of fun things because it’s such an active defenceman… She likes to skate the puck and she can start the offence for us, she can shoot the puck and she moves really well along the blue line. And it’s been fun to watch her game blossom in such a short time.”

Bell found her comfort zone with the No. 6-ranked Bulldogs, who almost missed out on her when she graduated from Deloraine School in 2017. Her original commitment was to the University of North Dakota, which suddenly shuttered its women’s hockey program after the 2016-17 season.

“The first time around in the recruiting process it came down to North Dakota and Duluth, so I was really interested in the school in the first place and when North Dakota got shut down like that, I waited to see if they could do anything about it and then when I heard that they weren’t going to be able to bring it back I reached out to them right away,” says Bell.

Crowell, an assistant coach for the American team that faced Bell’s Canadians in the final of the under-18 worlds that year, couldn’t believe her good fortune.

“She broke our hearts when she originally chose North Dakota because she was very high on our list and we were dying to get her in a Bulldogs uniform,” says Crowell. “She’s just a beautiful skater, Ashton is, and with her size and her hockey IQ, she was a highly coveted recruit at 17.”

For all of Bell’s puck acumen, she was once torn between hockey and the sport she left behind in high school.

“I like horses a lot,” says Bell, who grew up on a grain farm near Deloraine with her mom Teresa, dad Tony and brothers Tristan and Samuel. “I grew up with horses and rodeoed and like to do a bunch of cattle brandings in the summer. I’ve worked for my uncle on his ranch, so I’m really big into that…

“From Grade 6 on I did rodeo for a few years until hockey took over. I did barrel racing, pole bending, breakaway roping — all that kind of stuff. Working on a farm built strength growing up — lifting bales definitely helped with my strength and work ethic, I’d say.”

That work ethic should come in handy this season and beyond. Bell, named Bulldogs captain last fall, and her defensive partner, Maggie Flaherty, routinely log 30-plus minutes of ice time per game and their contributions will be crucial for a run to the national championship.

Bell also has an appointment with Team Canada, which will host the women’s world championship in Halifax and Truro, N.S., April 7-17. Thirty-five players recently finished a pre-tournament training camp while 12 others, including Bell, were excused from participation.

After two years with the under-18 national team and four more with the development team, Bell is eager to crack the senior nats in advance of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

“(Hockey Canada) was pretty good about communicating with us and they didn’t expect us to show up knowing that we’re in season right now with all the COVID protocols and circumstances,” she said. “They said they’ll continue to watch us and other college games. That’s how they’ll evaluate us and then they’re hoping for another camp before worlds.”  

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14