It was a full circle moment for Shakita Jensen when she stepped on the bench as head coach of Team Northwest Territories at the 2024 Arctic Winter Games.

In 2014, she played in the tournament in Alaska. A decade later, she returned to Alaska to coach.

“I felt a lot of emotions,” says Jensen, the national BFL CANADA Women in Coaching Award winner in the Competitive category.

Jensen, from the Tahltan First Nation, started as an on-ice volunteer with the Yellowknife Minor Hockey Association in 2014. Since then, her passion for giving back has driven her to continue her coaching journey.

“The hockey community has given me so much that I felt an obligation to want to give back to the hockey community in any way I could,” Jensen says. “When I got back from school, I was like, ‘I should probably try coaching, see if I like it.’ And of course I liked it right away.”

In addition to giving back, a few impactful women who coached Jensen growing up opened her eyes to her own potential journey.

“Having my first female head coach was super cool, and that made me want to get into coaching,” she says. “Growing up, being sometimes the only girl on my hockey teams, not really many women coaching, and then having my first few female coaches thinking, ‘Wow they’re so cool, I want to be like them one day.’”

The position of being a role model and a leader for youth in her community was also a driving factor in wanting to become a coach.

“I’ve had so many influential coaches in my own playing career. [There are] everlasting impacts they can have on their players, not only on the ice, but off the ice as people as well, what you can teach your players as a coach. I felt that I had lots to offer [as a head coach] and I wanted to be there for kids.”

 Jensen was in the right place at the right time to get her first head coaching position. There was a shortage of coaches in her association, so they asked Jensen—who initially applied to be an on-ice helper—if she wanted to be a head coach.

“It was a lot of quick learning and kind of being thrown into it, but I felt confident in myself the whole time,” the 26-year-old explains. “I just tried to network with past coaches as much as I could to have a successful season, which I think I did.”

Early in her career, Jensen decided to apply to be a part of the 2023 Canada Winter Games coaching staff for Team NWT, but she wasn’t selected. However, one of the coaches recommended she apply for the Aboriginal Apprentice Coach program with the Aboriginal Sports Circle.

“They chose one woman and one man from the territory, and it could be from any sport, so I knew that it was a bit of a long shot, but when I heard I got in for hockey, I was super excited.”

Through the apprenticeship program, Jensen was able to attend last year’s Canada Winter Games on Prince Edward Island and work with Team NWT leading up to the event. Afterwards, she became an assistant coach for Team NWT for the 2023 Arctic Winter Games before being promoted to head coach for the 2024 tournament.

“I think that definitely opened a lot of doors,” she says. “It was cool to see the progression and to allow me to gain all the tools and resources that I needed to prepare my team.”

As head coach of Team NWT, the location of each player’s hometowns can often be difficult to navigate—sometimes resulting in very few full team practices before an event.

“It was definitely a challenge wanting to build your team culture and work on your strategies and trying to prepare for a high-performance, short-term competition when your team is scattered all over the territories, in some places that are fly in/fly out or just a lot of money barriers,” she explains. “I think one thing that was super helpful was our ability to connect online leading up to the Games.”

Another huge opportunity for Jensen’s team this year was February’s One For All event in Yellowknife. With more than 300 participants over four days, the event celebrated women’s and girls’ hockey with Try Hockey events, on-ice skills, coaching clinics and more.

Team Northwest Territories and Team Nunavut gathered to practice and face off in an exhibition game.

“It was an overwhelming successful weekend—players putting on their hockey gear for the first time and then other players who were about to be graduating minor hockey,” says Jensen, who volunteered with the event. “It felt super to contribute to that program, give back and hopefully keep that program on a yearly basis here.”

When Jensen found out she was the BFL CANADA Women in Coaching Award winner for Hockey North in the Competitive category, she was shocked.

“I was so surprised, kind of caught off guard. I felt so much pride and gratitude.”

Jensen was unsure if she would be able to compete with the great provincial and territorial candidates across the country. But when she saw Cassie Campbell-Pascall on a video call congratulating her for winning the national award, she was in disbelief all over again.

“There are really no words,” she says of winning the national award. “There are so many influential coaches who go unrecognized sometimes for all the work they do. [I’m] really feeling proud of myself, but also feeling proud of everyone else across Canada who’s doing so much for the women’s game.”

“It was seeing my son on the ice and just having that want and desire to be out there with him and experience what he was experiencing, helping him learn,” she says.

That was almost six years ago.

Today, Keeley is the national BFL CANADA Women in Coaching Award recipient in the Community category, and the creator of a thriving coach development program with the Knights Hockey Club in Calgary.

“I think it’s important for women to realize that they have so much to offer and that what they have to offer is recognized and is appreciated,” Keeley says of the BFL CANADA honour. “This award gives that; it brings light to [the fact] that we can do this. We’re here now, and let’s keep blazing trails and breaking ceilings and all of those amazing things.”

A ringette player growing up who dabbled in hockey when the boys’ team in her northern Saskatchewan community needed bodies to fill out the lineup, Keeley had never given much thought to coaching until her son got into the game at the Timbits U7 level in the fall of 2018.

When she wasn’t selected to coach the following season in U9, her attention turned back to her first athletic love and she joined the Bow View Ringette Association, working as an assistant coach and head coach at U10 and U12.

“[It was about] learning and gaining the confidence that I needed to step back into hockey and make a difference,” she says of her three years with Bow View.

The word that continually comes up is process – Keeley spent those seasons observing other coaches, ensuring she was surrounded by the right people, building her coaching support system, filling her toolbox and learning how to be a coach in the competitive space.

One of her biggest takeaways? No one does it alone.

“What I believe makes the most successful coach is to surround themselves with people for the skills that they don’t currently have,” Keeley says. “And so for me, I always make sure that I have a very, very rounded team of people that can offset the skills that I don’t have, that I can learn from.”

When the 2022-23 hockey season rolled around, Keeley was ready to get back behind the bench with her son at the U11 level.

But she didn’t come back to hockey empty-handed. In addition to the skills she had learned with Bow View, Keeley came armed with a proposal for a coach development program targeted at women.

“The program was not so much about giving women all the tools they needed to be a coach,” she says. “It starts with having the confidence to put up their hand and say, ‘Yeah, I have something to offer.’ It was really about just helping the ladies to make that decision to put up their hand and to help them have that confidence to step on the ice.

“One of the objectives was to make sure that we had strong female leadership to keep girls in sport, because that’s important. What if we have strong leadership from the same gender on the ice? Would that make a difference? Would girls want to stay [involved in hockey] if they saw strong female coaches on the ice?”

The association was quick to jump at the proposal, and Keeley was off and running.

“Where we started was I held one on-ice session to begin with, and we had 12 ladies that put up their hand and came out,” she says. “And really what it was about more than anything was just to see what this program was all about.

“I had an hour-and-a-half ice time, and I think we spent 20 minutes on the ice. What we spent more time doing was talking about if this was the right fit for them, if they had the confidence to put their skates on and what this was going to look like if they actually got selected to be on the ice with their kid. It was amazing to hear females talk about challenges and obstacles and barriers, and me as a part of launching this program, being able to provide that space to have those open and honest conversations that they wouldn’t have anywhere else.”

What was originally meant to be a local program for women in the Knights program rapidly turned into something much bigger, much to Keeley’s delight.

Next was a training course, with the help of Hockey Alberta – the province’s first women-only Coach 2 clinic.

“At first, I was just opening it to the [local] group that had shown interest. Then we decided to open up to all of Alberta. And so on a very snowy November day, we had 24 females sitting in a room from across Alberta. We did the four-hour classroom, and then the next day we met for another seven [hours].

“That’s where the network started. A lot of us still keep in contact, and we send out emails to each other, and when there is an event happening for all female coaches, we make sure that we share and attend.”

In that first season, nine women were behind the bench with the Knights Hockey Club. During the 2023-24 season, that number grew to 14 – two as head coaches and 12 as assistants.

Keeley hosted a start-of-season meeting in September to teach coaches how to prepare a season plan and build practice plans, and had regular check-ins with every coach involved in the program, working through any challenges they were facing and ensuring they were getting what they needed from the experience.

She also continues to work closely with Hockey Calgary, participating in ongoing opportunities for women in coaching, including on- and off-ice development sessions.

But her No. 1 role is still being a mom, and there are few things that give her more joy than sharing hockey with her son. This season, Keeley led the U13 Tier 4 team.

“I always ask if he wants me to coach,” she says of her son. “And that even existed when I went and coached ringette because, of course, I wasn’t with him. I was always a non-parent coach in ringette, and I would ask him every season, ‘Are you okay if I do this?’

“When I coached the U12 AA team [in the spring of 2022], I was away quite a bit. We were on the ice five times a week. That was the first time he ever said to me, ‘Mom, I miss you. Can you come coach me?’

“We’re just in the midst of filling out our application for this upcoming season, which is his second year of U13. And he said, ‘Mom, are you going to coach again?’ I said, ‘Do you want me to?’ He said, ‘As long as you want to.’ So yes, I’m going to apply to be a coach again.”

That’s a lucky son, and a lucky association that gets to benefit from what Keeley has to offer.

But ask her, and she’ll tell you just the opposite – that she’s the lucky one, benefitting from what the players can offer her.

“I have had some really amazing experiences both on and off the ice, just learning from these players. The amount, if you sit back and you listen, that you can learn is just unbelievable, and they always make you smile.”

Even as a player, Kelly Paton had always taken an interest in what happens behind the scenes in hockey. She took opportunities to learn more about the game from her coaching staff, including how staff helped to support student-athletes while she attended the University of New Hampshire.

That, along with her strong hockey IQ, led Paton’s head coach, Brian McCloskey, to give her a piece of advice: “Patty, you’re a coach.”

“He just kept telling me I was a coach,” says Paton, the national BFL CANADA Women in Coaching Award winner in the High Performance category. “Certainly, I was interested; I didn’t have my mind made up. I wanted to find ways to stay connected to the game and at that point, with some limitations of hockey beyond college, that was probably my best pathway for it.”

A Woodstock, Ontario, native who has spent the last six seasons as head coach of the women’s hockey team at Wilfrid Laurier University, Paton grew up in an athletic family. When her older brother started playing hockey, Paton wanted to start playing as well.

“Many days were spent in our cul-de-sac; I got stuck in the goalie position and his friends would shoot many pucks and balls my way,” Paton says. “That’s probably where my interest started.”

Paton initially played boys hockey in her hometown until switching to girls’ hockey with the London Devilettes. After her final year of minor hockey, she spent four years at New Hampshire, serving as captain and finishing as a top-three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award as a senior in the 2009-10 season.

“[It] helped shape my confidence in my ability to play the game, but then big picture, how there are ways where I could give back and help the development of others,” Paton says of her time as a Wildcat. “I think that’s where I had some affirmation that my IQ for the game was pretty good and that aligned really well with coaching.”

After completing her undergraduate degree, Paton wasn’t sure how she wanted to incorporate coaching into her life, whether as a volunteer or as a career. But after finishing a graduate degree at Mercyhurst University and then living on Vancouver Island for a while, she decided to return home to Southwestern Ontario and get back involved with the game she loved.

She reconnected with her minor hockey roots by taking on a coaching role with the Devilettes’ junior program. There, Paton credits Dwayne Blais for being one of her mentors as she began her coaching journey.

“I was the head coach, but he certainly was the one I leaned on the most with being mentored and learning how to manage conflict, how to manage expectation, but more importantly just building practice plans that supported development.”

After reconnecting with one of her junior coaches, Paton was presented with an opportunity to join Western University as an assistant coach.

“I walked into a space where [the Mustangs] were coming off a national championship, which came with a lot of expectations,” Paton says. “I was happy we were still able to carry out some of that momentum and be a top performer in the OUA.”

Paton served as an assistant coach for two years before being promoted to head coach at Western. Ahead of the 2018-19 season, she made the move to Laurier.

“We’re coming off a great season this past year and our leadership group has done an excellent job of really stepping into a space where they’re allowing me to coach, which is awesome,” she says. “We’re certainly a team that carries high expectations, knowing that we still have responsibility to carry the legacy of Laurier hockey. […] The goal is to keep moving forward. I certainly think we’re in the right pathway to do that, and a lot of that is a testament to the players that we have in our program now.”

Reflecting on her time coaching in U SPORTS, one of the bigger transitions for Paton was navigating how to match her communication to each individual player on her team.

“In the university sector, it can get really challenging to satisfy 25 athletes with all different learning styles and still walk away and feel like we got through what we needed to get through today,” she explains. “Now with experience, I’ve learned that’s part of the process. But when I was younger, that day-to-day management of seeing where everybody’s at—generally the only way to figure that out is to ask, and that’s where the communication piece is.”

Building relationships has been key to Paton’s coaching journey, and she is grateful to have found a support system in her corner as she continues to develop as a coach.

“It’s been a pretty critical piece to finding confidence in myself,” Paton says of her mentors. “There’s been a couple that have been instrumental with shaping my coaching style, my communication style, my knowledge of the game. Dwayne was a big piece of that, Rachel Flanagan, and even my college coach, Brian. I still speak with him [14 years after graduating].”

For those looking to begin their coaching journeys or advance their coaching career into the high-performance area, Paton’s advice would be to stay honest and accountable.

“When mistakes happen, don’t shy away from taking ownership of that. If there are areas that are challenging or you need advice on, that’s where that mentorship really comes in handy; having somebody that’s a neutral soundboard that’s going to help you make decisions without carried bias or carried experiences.

“I’m really grateful that I’ve had those opportunities to have good people around me and have the confidence that went up when mistakes are made, and that helps trickle into the player group as well.”

The first thing Kaylee Grant did when she moved to Yellowknife was find a hockey team.

The operating engineer took a one-year term to gain experience in her industry. Twelve years later, she’s still in the Northwest Territories and hockey has been a reason why she calls it home.

“You gravitate to what you know, and I knew sports,” Grant says. “When you join a sport, you instantly have 17 friends and a group where you feel accepted through a common goal and interest. When I moved to the North, I didn’t know how else to meet friends, so I went to the rink right away.”

Grant grew up around the rink in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The community was also a hockey hotbed, supporting its Junior A, Junior B and university teams. Being around that passion and community made hockey an important part of her life.

“Playing hockey is what we did,” Grant says. “The community rallied behind our teams and the rinks were full, the atmosphere was great, and hockey was so prominent.”

She played minor hockey in Nova Scotia before moving to Newfoundland and Labrador to play at Memorial University. At 23 years old, she made the move to Yellowknife and knew she would find her community inside a rink.

“I find that the easiest thing to do when you come to a new place to meet people is through sport,” she says. “With joining a hockey team, I was already creating a group of people that were like-minded in interests and similar age. Plus, there are so many opportunities in the North to grow as coaches, players and mentors that have been so helpful.”

Grant’s love for the game wasn’t just as a player—she expanded her knowledge by getting into coaching while in Nova Scotia. She started as an off-ice coordinator with the Antigonish Bulldogs women’s under-18 team.

She did her Coach Development 1 training before getting her High Performance 1 training and evaluation certification. She continued to pursue additional coaching certification and training over the years to educate herself and give back to her community.

“I think seeing the female game continuously grow and develop that keeps me interested,” Grant says. “I love to see the progress in my players. I love seeing these players grow and adapt as individuals. Seeing them get involved in coaching is the coolest part.”

Her coaching philosophy is to develop a player’s passion for the game, be a role model and create an environment that is positive for women and girls.

Coaching and mentoring young girls are important to Grant, and she saw that path was through high-level opportunities, particularly by becoming a facilitator to drive more players into the coaching route. She has been working with Hockey North and the Hockey Canada Women Master Coach Developer program, which is focused on removing barriers to coaching education for women.

“Kaylee has volunteered at pretty much every level and she’s getting more involved with training coaches and being a clinician, which is an amazing progression for her,” says Kyle Kugler, executive director of Hockey North and a close friend of Grant. “She’s a great ambassador for hockey by giving back to other coaches through her experiences and helping with their development.”

Through being a volunteer coach, Grant has been able to experience some highlights with her teams, including as head coach for the Arctic Winter Games and Canada Winter Games, and as an assistant coach for Team North at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championship.

“Hockey North has given me so many opportunities and having that support has impacted me as a coach,” Grant says. “I enjoyed every year with those territorial teams and those experiences are a very big reason why I stay here – the coaching opportunities and knowing that we continually have room to grow.”

Another event that Grant was a key volunteer for was the inaugural One For All festival held in Yellowknife in February. It was a four-day event for women and girls from across the N.W.T. and Nunavut that included goaltending clinics, on-ice scrimmages and other off-ice experiences. The event was launched in partnership with Hockey Canada and Hockey North to celebrate the sport and grow grassroots hockey in the North.

“Kaylee is one of our co-leads in the North, and when we set out to deliver this programming in Yellowknife, it was a no-brainer that she would be involved. And typical Kaylee, she just runs with a task and completely owns it,” says Katie Greenway, manager of women’s and girls’ hockey with Hockey Canada. “To have champions like Kaylee that dedicate themselves to their community and sport is so important.”

Giving back through coaching is just what Grant does—it’s like a hobby for her and she does it for others and to see more women in the sport, not for what it could bring to her.

“I’ve known Kaylee for a few years now and she has so much on her plate, but she never says no,” Greenway says. “She doesn’t do it for the accolades, but out of the goodness of her heart with a smile on her face. She’s fantastic and is really impacting everyone that she comes across.”

Grant’s impact on hockey in the North has been felt by many of the girls she has coached, mentored and played with over the past 12 years, but it’s the bigger picture that is most important to her.

“I’m not going to say that myself, individually, has drastically impacted female hockey in the North. I think I am a very small portion of what’s been going on in the North in the last 10 years,” Grant says. “I would like to think that I have helped develop more female coaches and I’ve been a good role model. I think if I have impacted hockey in the North, its pushing players to want to coach a little bit, but it’s a collective—everyone has left their mark on the female game.”

For Kugler, as the lone administrator for Hockey North, having volunteers like Kaylee is so critical to the work and development of hockey players.

“I think volunteers are essential for the delivery of anything in small communities in the North,” he says. “[Kaylee] takes on more than we even realize. Coaches have a huge influence on teams and athletes and she’s a positive role model and advocate for female hockey. She’s selfless with her time and she’s just an awesome person.”

Interested in becoming a coach? Visit HockeyCanada.ca/Coaching, or contact your local hockey association or Hockey Canada Member for more information.

CALGARY, AB – Hockey Canada and U SPORTS have announced the eight student-athletes who have been selected to join Creating Coaches, a program designed to increase the number of women coaching hockey in Canada, as part of its third cohort which will run during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

Launched in 2021 through a partnership between Hockey Canada, U SPORTS and the Hockey Canada Foundation, Creating Coaches provides training and mentorship to current U SPORTS student-athletes who are concurrently looking to begin their coaching careers. Participants in the program serve as an assistant coach with a U13, U15 or U18 girls’ hockey team for the duration of the two seasons and receive coach education, professional development opportunities and an honorarium.  

This year’s cohort includes student-athletes from eight U SPORTS women’s hockey programs across three of its conferences:

• Alexis Anonech (York University, OUA)

• Emmy Fecteau (Concordia University, RSEQ)

• Lyndsey Janes (Mount Royal University, CW)

• Madison Laberge (Nipissing University, OUA)

• Isabelle Lajoie (University of Alberta, CW)

• Sophie Lalor (University of Saskatchewan, CW)

• Sarah-Maude Lavoie (McGill University, RSEQ)

• Chihiro Suzuki (Guelph University, OUA)

“We are thrilled to welcome these eight accomplished student-athletes to Creating Coaches and look forward to working with them during the next two seasons,” said Marin Hickox, Hockey Canada’s vice-president of women and girls’ hockey. “Creating Coaches is an important program to support and develop hockey’s next generation of leaders and we are grateful to the U SPORTS coaches who nominated this talented group.

“Girls who have been coached by a woman are more likely to transition into a coaching role at the end of their playing careers, and it is our intention that this program will positively influence the recruitment and retention of girls and women in leadership roles in the sport.”

Since its inception, Creating Coaches has included student-athletes from 16 U SPORTS women’s hockey programs and all four of its conferences.

“The eight student-athletes selected to join Creating Coaches are tremendous ambassadors for hockey and university sport in Canada,” said Lisette Johnson-Stapley, chief sport officer at U SPORTS. “We have already seen the positive impact that this program has had inspiring young girls in communities across the country and we are excited for Alexis, Chihiro, Emmy, Isabelle, Lyndsey, Madison, Sarah-Maude and Sophie to begin their coaching careers while continuing to represent their universities with pride as student-athletes.”

The Creating Coaches selection committee includes representation from Hockey Canada, U SPORTS, Hockey Canada’s Members and the Hockey Canada Foundation Board of Directors.

During National Coaches Week, Hockey Canada is celebrating the positive impact that coaches have on athletes in communities from coast to coast to coast, with #ThanksCoach resources and features shared here.

To learn more about Hockey Canada, please visit HockeyCanada.ca, or follow along through social media on Facebook, X and Instagram.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Montreal – playing five years with the Carabins and winning a U SPORTS national title in 2016 – and then a specialized graduate diploma (DESS) in sports management from HEC Montreal, the defenceman joined the Canadiennes de Montréal of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) in 2017.

She spent only one season with the Canadiennes, calling it a career at the age of 26 to become a coach.

“It was more or less by chance,” says Beaulieu, the national winner of the BFL Female Coach of the Year in the Competitive category. “I started [coaching] when I was 16. From then until my year with the Canadiennes, I was a summer coach at the AAA level. I was a private coach for both boys and girls, but I never really thought about coaching a full season. I was so overwhelmed with what I was doing as an athlete that I never thought there would be a next step.”

Beaulieu, 30, got a full-time job as a player development assistant with Hockey Quebec, but to do so, she had to give up her on-ice career. The benefits, though, were obvious.

“My work at Hockey Quebec gave me the opportunity to learn more about development,” says the Stoneham, Que., native. “Someone from the Richelieu region approached me because he really wanted to manage a team with a woman. I don’t know how he found me or what contact it was, but it was the father of a player I had met, and he said that he really wanted to run the [Cégep André-Laurendeau] team with me. I told him I wanted to be an assistant, but nothing more. Then I found out that I liked it more than I thought I would.”

The following year, Beaulieu became the head coach of the Remparts du Richelieu U18 AAA team in addition to continuing her position as assistant coach with Cégep André-Laurendeau.

“I wasn’t surprised that I liked coaching, but that I liked it so much. [I liked that] you do it all year long, on weekends, in the evenings... I wanted to do it more than two months a year,” she says.

Beaulieu really enjoys teaching the kids. The fact her players have not yet peaked allows her to maximize the role she plays in their development.

“Those players still have fun in everything they do,” she says. “They really appreciate the investment you make and the time you take for them. That’s something I really like about this age group. They are passionate and still have plenty of goals to achieve at the college or national levels. It’s an age group that is full of goals and potential.”

Still, it’s very important to have fun on the ice at that age. While Beaulieu is well aware of this, she also believes that it is possible to have fun and push yourself at the same time.

“I want the girls to like to surpass themselves while knowing that it’s always necessary to have fun," explains Beaulieu, who served as defence coach with the Titans du Cégep Limoilou last season. “It’s possible to have fun while working 100% all the time. If you go out on the ice every day and you love what you do, you will improve. At the end of the year, those girls come to me for more feedback, to watch more videos. It’s a teachable mentality and the girls want to get more. In the end, it works!”

It’s clear the young coach is passionate about her sport, whether she was on the ice or behind the bench.

But nowhere is that passion more evident than when she is able to share it with others.

“I’m very proud when I see a player’s passion grow over the course of the year," Beaulieu says. “She already loved hockey, but she didn’t realize how much she loved it for details that she probably wasn’t aware of at first. As time goes on, as she practices things, she asks for even more feedback and information. I’m very proud of being able to pass it on; it’s my greatest accomplishment even if it’s not really mine. It takes an athlete who is willing to do it to make it there, but it’s something I really enjoy doing.”

After coaching at the college and U18 AAA levels, Beaulieu does not intend to stop there. Even if there is no rush, she is starting to think about the next steps she could take.

“Obviously, I want to get as high as I can, but I think there are steps to take before that,” she says. Right now, I am in Limoilou and I am really proud of what I am doing. Maybe my next step would be to join Team Quebec at the provincial level. That’s the next step I want to take, but I’m not setting any limits. We’ll see where it takes me.”

The inaugural event, held in early June in Brandon, Man., was a smashing success and included over 130 young girls, being taught on-ice skills by 12 coaches with an array of experience, those from the grassroots level of the game right up to elite AAA club hockey.

The title of the camp?

The Fierce Female Hockey Camp.

Doerksen, the national winner of the 2022 BFL Female Coach of the Year Award in the Community category, believes in being fierce. She says that’s how women’s hockey is going to break down barriers, overcome hurdles and progress to the status that it deserves.

“It blew me away, the comments that I have received from parents of players who attended, from coaches who participated,” says Doerksen, a lifelong hockey player, longtime coach and extreme advocate for the women’s game. “A quote I got from an under-18 player, who perfectly summarizes exactly the reason why I created this camp … she won a provincial championship this season, she’s playing at the highest level that a girl can play at in minor hockey in Manitoba, and she still had people saying ‘It doesn’t count, you play girls’ hockey.’

“That’s not OK. They need to feel fierce; they need to feel amazing.”

Doerksen speaks from experience. Like many women in the game, she has faced challenges to be heard and seen, challenges that many men simply don’t have to deal with. As a kid, she played ringette – “Girls didn’t play hockey and we were directed into the sport of ringette” – but fell in love with hockey during her junior high school years. Those days in Manitoba, there were few women’s hockey players and Doerksen remembers at age 12 getting dressed for practices next to 16- and 17-year-olds.

Doerksen would continue to excel in hockey over the years and ended up playing for the University of Manitoba. After her days with the Bisons, Doerksen headed to Ryerson University in Toronto (where the talented multi-sport athlete played soccer for the Rams) and, post graduation, lived in Kenora, Ont. It is there when she first entered the coaching ranks with a local high school team.

Doerksen, who is a mom to three and stepmom to one, is a published author of children’s books. On her blog, which can be found at AmyDoerksen.com, she lists five loves: family, feminism, hockey, Canada’s north and books.

She lived in Yellowknife, N.W.T., for just under five years and that time made a lasting impression on Doerksen.

“I’m appreciative of how much the north invested in developing female coaches,” says Doerksen. “I think the rest of Canada can learn a lot from the progressive views of the north. They’re ahead of the game.”

Doerksen has held various coaching and leadership positions in hockey, starting as an assistant coach with the Beaver Brae Broncos high school team in Kenora from 2001-03. She was president of the Yellowknife Women’s Hockey League from 2007-11 and, during her time up north, was also assistant coach of the Northwest Territories girls’ team for the Arctic Winter Games.

This season, Doerksen could be seen on the ice at the grassroots level with an under-7 team and also with high-performance athletes on the Brandon Wheat Kings female U15 club.

Off the ice, Doerksen has also been part of hockey boards and was the U7 division director with Hockey Brandon from 2020-22. Her full list of teams, accomplishments and honours is extremely impressive and too long to list.

But there’s more work to be done. Too many times, Doerksen has been the lone woman on the ice, the lone woman in the hockey boardroom that is still dominated by men. While she has seen progress over the past 20 years of her involvement as a coach and leader, Doerksen says that progress should be happening at a much quicker rate.

“I started crying on the call,” she says when asked about her reaction to being named a BFL Female Coach of the Year. “It was the day after my hockey camp and I was really a hot mess from the experience. I was completely overwhelmed with what an amazing weekend it was. I’m grateful. I’m getting emotional right now because it’s incredible. As women, we need to seek … it’s good to stand up and say ‘Hey, I am good at this, this is something that I’m proud of’. There is that validation piece.

“The reason I get emotional is because I have faced a lot of struggles where I don’t feel that people really have always got the value that I can add. When you’re always coming up against that wall, it feels wonderful to have an organization like Hockey Canada say, ‘Hey we see you and we see what you’re doing.’”

That’s Sarah Hilworth.

One of the top coaches in Canadian university hockey, Hilworth led the University of New Brunswick (UNB) women’s team to the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) championship in 2021-22, less than five years after UNB’s women’s hockey program was reinstated into AUS.

For her work, Hilworth was named the national winner of the 2022 BFL Female Coach of the Year Award in the High Performance category. The honour comes on the heels of Hilworth being named AUS Coach of the Year.

“I was floored, I couldn’t even believe it,” the Vancouver native says of the BFL CANADA award. “I was honoured just to be nominated and when they told me I was the recipient … it’s hard to accept something where I know there are so many people involved that, truly, this goes out to them.

“It’s nice to represent something that we have created here in Fredericton that is so special to me and so many people. I’m very proud of everything that our organization has done. I don’t think that I can take full credit because there are so many people who have helped me get to where we are.”

Hockey fans will know the Hilworth name from her playing days. She was a top contributor with the University of Alberta during her five years playing for that program, registering 100 points in her 100-game career. The decorated career came to an abrupt end during Hilworth’s fifth season when she blocked a shot, the puck shattering her knee cap.

There’s no doubt Hilworth was disappointed, as the elite athlete had contracts lined up with plans to head to Europe to play professionally. But she didn’t have too much time to dwell on that as the coaching bug took over.

The transition from player to coach was a pretty natural one, given Hilworth’s passion and knowledge of the game.

“To think back, that kid from inner-city Vancouver, growing up and adoring the sport … I look back and I was always an athlete but I always think I was a coach first. I was the only person in my class playing hockey and only girl playing sports,” says Hilworth. “I remember getting in trouble from my teachers in Grade 3 because I would be drawing up drills in my book and doing up little sign-up sheets and I would be teaching the girls in my class how to play basketball or soccer or any kind of sport. I needed people to play with and I would have these little clinics set up. That’s kind of how my mind was when I was little. It just translated into high school and I started helping coach teams there too.

“I just love it. I love helping people and seeing people enjoy being athletic, whether it’s hockey, baseball, soccer or whatever. The power of sport is pretty incredible.”

She credits Howie Draper for her move into the university coaching ranks. Draper, the long-time University of Alberta head coach who recently led Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team to gold at the 2022 IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship, was Hilworth’s head coach from 2008-13.

Hilworth jokes that Draper may have felt bad for her but, in reality, Draper could see the passion and knowledge Hilworth had. He offered her a chance to be an assistant coach on his staff, a role Hilworth held for two seasons before taking a head coaching position at Olds College in Alberta. Hilworth left Olds after two seasons for the opportunity to lead the UNB program.

Today, Hilworth says she’s living the dream. Hockey has given her the opportunity to see the country and the world, has been the reason she went from one coast to another and is pretty much the reason for every aspect of her life.

“It’s given me everything. I’ve never not been an athlete. I’ve never not loved the game,” she says. “It’s something that has given me discipline, taught me hard work, given me goals; some of the best times of my life, some of the worst times of my life. It’s given me my family, my friends. The people that I’ve met along the way are some of the most incredible people. My student-athletes, they’re all family to me. There are so many personal things the game has taught me but the family and people that I’ve met along the way are the people I love and enjoy and I’m so grateful and truly … I’m so blessed.”

Hilworth is thrilled at the investment that UNB has made into its women’s hockey program. She thinks the state of the game is at an all-time high and points to the incredible talent displayed during the recent U18 women’s worlds. Ever the advocate, though, Hilworth says there’s more to be done.

“I would like to see more women in our game. There are a lot of incredible women in our game already and coaching, and a lot of them that I look up to,” she says. “We need to continue to see that investment made into women coaching women. I want to see more equality in terms of how ice is being allocated in female programs versus male programs and how communities are rallying behind their young female hockey players. That’s still something that is missing in our game.”

While Canada’s National Women’s Team got on the ice for the first time at training camp last month, more than 6,100 people involved in hockey – players, coaches and parents – participated in the Pond to Podium Development Series.

Participants at all levels of the game connected directly with national team athletes and staff through 16 webinars that included skills sessions, holistic hockey training sessions, panel discussions and We Are Coaches clinics led by Hockey Canada women master coach developers.

“The participation of girls and women at all levels of hockey elevates our game and creates a thriving sport system,” says Teal Gove, manager of hockey development with Hockey Canada. “We hope the Pond to Podium Development Series encouraged all participants, in whatever their role, to strive for their personal podium so they can continue to gain all of the benefits hockey has to offer along the way.”

What did the participants take away from Pond to Podium? Check out a few testimonials.

“I was excited to attend the Core Values of Leadership session that was run by Gina Kingsbury. There were two areas that I felt made me better understand how I can become a better leader for my teammates. First and foremost, I learned it is important to be myself and not change who I am. Although I have the honour of wearing a letter on my jersey, I do not have to be serious all the time. I learned that it is important to have a balance with having fun with my teammates, connecting with them and being serious when I need to be. Secondly, I learned it is important to learn who my teammates are personally, to understand who they are on and off the ice. As a leader, it is important to create friendship and trust with your teammates, to ensure they feel comfortable talking to me. The session has given me a different perspective of what leadership is and how I can apply what I have learned to be a better leader, a better athlete and a better student.”

-- Ava Irwin, player (Burlington Girls Hockey Club)

“In the never-ending pursuit of being their best, highly-motivated coaches (from house league to national teams) seek information, advice and feedback. Ideally, you want to get those things from people with outstanding credentials and the right values. Hockey Canada’s Pond to Podium Development Series brought the best in girls and women’s hockey to our computer/phone screen. From Tara Watchorn’s A, B, Cs of playing defence to Howie Draper’s four Fs (fun, fast, fight, family) to Kori Cheverie and Vicky Sunohara addressing the importance of making the game enjoyable for their players, Pond to Podium is informative, insightful and interactive.”

-- Steve McAllister, coach (Kincardine Minor Hockey Association)

“As a parent of a young girl, it was inspirational to hear what leaders at the highest levels, such as Gina Kingsbury and Teal Gove, believe in. Having not been on the ice with her teammates during the pandemic, these webinars reinvigorated my daughter's passion for hockey and reminded her why she loves the game. The advice she received from two tremendous role models advanced her knowledge of the game, which will in turn motivate her and her team when they return to the ice.”

-- Melina Ducharme, parent (Burlington Girls Hockey Club)

“Watching the Pond to Podium sessions became a family affair! My U18 daughter (a defenceman), my U15 son (a goaltender) and I all thoroughly enjoyed the webinars. They were well-organized with very knowledgeable presenters who covered a wide range of useful teaching points and concepts that can be easily incorporated into practices or into a player’s regimen. I especially enjoyed Tara Watchorn’s concept of communicating the purpose of drills so players understand why and can more readily internalize the lesson (Developing Defence); Jessica Campbell’s philosophy of continuous development of skating skills being essential for all players to get a leg up in the game (Specialized Skating Skills); Gord Woodhall’s identification of the foundation of stance in everything a goalie does (Goaltending); and Paula McQuaid’s assertion that confidence and mental toughness are learned skills that can be improved through understanding what one can control, reframing situations positively and managing one’s emotions (Mental Training). A wealth of great ideas and lessons for players and coaches to take their game to the next level!”

-- Jeff Partrick, coach (Gloucester-Cumberland Girls Hockey Association)

“I thoroughly enjoyed the We Are Coaches programming during the Pond to Podium series. I have taken coach courses in the past, but this was my first experience in an all-women coaching program geared toward coaching women. I took so much more away from this than I have in previous courses. It made me think about things that I hadn’t thought of, and the group dynamic created an atmosphere that allowed for collaboration between coaches across our country. It was motivating, inspiring and what I think is needed to get more women involved in coaching and, ultimately, to continue to grow the women’s game. Thank you so much for this opportunity!”

-- Kristy Provost, coach (Nampa Minor Hockey Association)

“The broad scope and variety of the Pond to Podium topics was impressive. Athletes, coaches and parents could all learn from the various sessions. For our athletes to hear from women at the highest levels speaking openly and honestly about their experience, the ups and downs they have gone through, was very impactful. I love that the focus for the players was off the ice (mental, leadership and off-ice workouts) and all were topics within their control to take ownership of and work on to improve. The sessions were inspiring to those of us who love the game, who are proud to be a part of Hockey Canada and who are driven to keep getting better.”

-- Ryan Essex, coach (Central York Girls Hockey Association)

Would you like to be kept in the know regarding the next Pond to Podium Development Series? Register below to receive more information as it becomes available.