Fifty-three of the best female hockey players north of 100 Mile House stormed the Cariboo Memorial Complex on the weekend for BC Hockey’s U16 High Performance Camp.
The camp, emulated to follow Hockey Canada’s high performance program, saw participants spend two days giving it their all in hopes of advancing as one of 20 players to the next stage of the program.
Williams Lake hockey coach and BC Hockey district director Troy Wiel said it was a gruelling two days of on- and off-ice activities.
Wiel said they were originally expecting just 30 players to register, but added they had to scramble for more ice time when the 53 players arrived to register Saturday morning.
“We were expecting about 30 girls and when we saw how many players there were we had to ask some local coaches for some ice and we had to ask the Williams Lake Minor Hockey Association for some ice, and they were nice enough to help us out,” Wiel said.
“If we had to run 53 girls on the original ice time we had booked it wouldn’t have been a fair evaluation process.”
After registering Saturday players were split into two groups for a 1.5-hour on-ice practice, followed by off-ice physical testing. After that players were placed onto three teams to play a round robin tournament Saturday night, and Sunday morning.
“This is probably the biggest deal these girls have all done,” Wiel said.
From the camp 20 players — two goalies, six defenceman and 12 forwards — advanced to the next round — a province-wide tournament pitting each of the zone teams against one another April 4 in Duncan.
Of those, six players from Williams Lake made the team. Victoria Byer, Stefanie Martin, Sarah Hermsen, Laine Grace, Caily Mellott and Ruthie Jackson advanced.
“The local players did outstanding,” Wiel said. “And the girls who didn’t make it from Williams Lake, they were awesome, too. We showed very, very well.”
He said 15 volunteers helped make the camp a success and added it was an outstanding experience for the players. Williams Lake hockey players who’ve gone through the program including Tessa Hare, Chantelle Rolph and Cassidy Mellott were also on hand as mentors to the players.
“The way we run the high performance camps is basically the same as Hockey Canada’s camp,” he said.
“It’s a learning experience for them.
“Physically, they’re asked to do a lot in one weekend and they were extremely tired. We push them pretty hard and they do respond and we expect at this level to be the cream of the crop.”
