U women’s hockey: Drop the puck
Posted on September 24th, 2008 – 8:35 PMBy Roman Augustoviz
The Gophers women’s hockey team, which has high hopes this season as usual, will show the public what it can do for the first time on Friday.
The Gophers play the University of Saskatchewan at 7:07 p.m. Friday at Ridder Arena in an exhibition game.
The Huskies, coached by Steve Kook, have been practicing since the first week of September and have played three exhibition games already in the Icebreaker Tournament. It was held in Saskatoon, so Sakatchewan was the host team.
The Huskies, who were 12-9-3 a year ago, lost the first game on Sept. 19 to the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns 2-1 but came back to win the next two, beating the SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) Trojans 5-3 and the NAIT Ooks 3-1.
NAIT stands for Northern Alberta I of T. But what are Pronghorns and Ooks? There is so much I don’t know about Canada.
Second-year forward Breanna George is off to a great start. The 5-4 Saskatoon native has four goals in three games.
Kook was the co-Coach of the Year in Canada West last season with Wayne Grund, now one of his assistants. The Huskies’ record in 2007-08 was their best since 2002-03.
Kook said he wants his team to move the puck out of its zone better, so his speedy forwards can do their jobs.
George played on Saskatchewan’s top line last year with Chelsea Purcell and Shaye Christiansen. They were the team’s top three scorers. Each had 20-plus points.
Top newcomers for the Huskies are Danny Stone, Jaclyn Tate and Madison Duffin.
The Huskies made a rare appearance in Canada Interuniversity Sport Top 10 last year.
After playing the Gophers, they face St. Cloud State at 3 p.m. Saturday at the National Hockey Center.
Researching Saskatchewan’s team, I came across this interesting story on the web. It was written a year ago, Sept. 7:
The University of Saskatchewan (U of S) and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission announced today the settlement of a complaint related to the Huskie Women’s Hockey program.
In April 2000, a community group known as Women 2000 launched a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission alleging the University’s hockey program for women was inferior to that of the men’s program. Issues raised in the complaint included less money spent on coaching the women’s team and inadequate facilities.
“Since the complaint was launched, many of the differences between the men’s and women’s athletic programs have been addressed,” Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission Acting Chief Commissioner John C. Hill said. “However, achieving gender equity in sports programs continues to be a challenge in universities across the country. We commend the U of S for making this commitment toward ensuring that Huskie Athletics is equitable to all athletes.”
Provisions of the settlement include: hiring of a high-performance, on-campus women’s hockey coach; increased funds for student athletic awards, distributed equitably among teams and genders; and equal recruitment funds granted to the operating budgets for both women’s and men’s hockey. The settlement makes it unnecessary for the complaint to be heard by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal.
“The University of Saskatchewan has always been and remains fully committed to the women’s hockey program,” U of S Acting Athletic Director Bill Seymour said. “Student athletics are important to our campus and the student experience. We are proud to be a leader in women’s hockey programming and look forward to even greater success for Huskie Women’s Hockey.”
Comment: That’s swell. But it still seems the Huskies recruit mostly in their area. Fifteen players are from Sasketchewan, six from Alberta, one from British Columbia and one from Manitoba. The team is pretty small, too. Three 5-10 players are the tallest. But maybe the Huskies are fast.
