Team Ontario looks north for skills, leadership

Shaniah Linklater sees hockey in her future.
The 16-year-old from Moose Factory watched the 2010 women’s Olympics hockey tournament with stars in her eyes.
When it was all over, Linklater knew that was where she wanted to be.
“Watching the girls win the gold at the Olympics, I want that experience,” Linklater says. “It made me want to keep going with hockey.”
Linklater will take a big step towards her goal when she laces up the skates for Team Ontario at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships in Saskatoon, Sask. from May 6-12.
Linklater is the first girl from Moose Factory to ever make the team, and at only 16, one of the youngest.
Both the girls and the boys team met for the first time in Toronto on May 5, before flying to Saskatoon that day and starting practices as a team.
The teams were assembled through a series of tryouts held across Ontario. Most of the players are new to the squads, having never played together before, so one of the first challenges was to bond quickly before games start on May 7.
Linklater comes from the most northernly community, but she is certainly not the only girl from northern Ontario. Team Ontario features five players from northern Ontario, and another five from the North Bay and Sudbury region.
Bailey Meawasige is another newcomer to the team. Meawasige, of Fort William First Nation, was one of only three players from northwestern Ontario to make the team out of the tryout in Thunder Bay. But while Meawasige is technically a rookie at the tournament, at 20 she is one of the oldest players on the team and she knows the coaches are going to look to her for veteran leadership.
“I look forward to doing anything I can to help out, to be a leader as one of the older players,” Meawasige said.
Meawasige also has an advantage from playing her minor hockey in the Thunder Bay hockey system, against stiff competition. As a young girl she played boys hockey, only switching to girls hockey at the age of 13. And she said her younger brother also pushed her, as they played together year after year with a lot of sibling rivalry.
“Playing boys hockey showed me how to be aggressive, and play with a little more contact,” she said with a laugh.
Another veteran on the girls team is Roberta Mamakwa of Sioux Lookout, a Kingfisher Lake band member. Mamakwa was on the silver-medalist Team Ontario in 2010, the last time Ontario put a girls team in the tournament.
Mamakwa said she knows how tough it was not only to adapt to a higher level of hockey than what most of the girls were used to, but also to adapt so quickly and do so with a new group of players who have only a day of practice together before the tournament begins.
But she said her experience in 2010 has increased her confidence as a player, and she knows she will be called on to use those experiences in a leadership role this time around.
“I learned a lot from the older girls (in 2010) about how to lead the team, how to be prepared to play every day and how to motivate the younger players to play hard,” Mamakwa said. “I’m pretty confident to go play over there.”
Meanwhile on the boys side, Lac Seul is sending a host of players to the team. Five boys from the community have made the team, an unprecedented number of players from the same community.
Johnathan Carpenter returns to the team, one year more experienced than he was when he played as a 15-year-old on the 2011 bronze medal-winning Team Ontario.
Carpenter said he expects to do even better than last year, now that he has another year of experience under his belt.
He said the fact that so many players are coming from Lac Seul will make it easier for the team to bond in a tournament where they have never played together before.
“It’s pretty good to represent our reserve this way,” Carpenter said. “Most of us have been playing together since we were younger.”
Carpenter also knows first hand how good it is for the younger children on the reserve to see guys his age succeeding in hockey. He said he regularly has little kids asking him where he’s playing and how his hockey career is coming along.
“I guess we’re kind of role models in our community,” he said.
The round robin part of the tournament finishes on May 8, after each team has played three games. From there the teams will be divided into seeds for the knockout round from May 9-12.