Lethbridge native wins U Sports major award
MRU HOCKEY PLAYER SARAH WENINGER RECOGNIZED WITH MARION HILLARD AWARD
Lethbridge native Sarah Weninger recently capped off her women’s university hockey career with the Mount Royal Cougars with a major award, receiving the U Sports Marion Hillard Award, recognizing a student-athlete for excellence on the ice, in the classroom and in the community.
Weninger was the only player from the Canada West conference to win a major award this past season.
“It was an honour to say the least,” said Weninger, a criminal justice major.
“I have a ton of people that have helped me along the way. I would not have even been able to be considered for the award if it was not for them.
“I think for me the most incredible part of the award is that coaches around our league and around the country believed that I was capable of this award, especially going up against some truly amazing young women who were just as deserving of it.”
Weninger has been a key contributor to the Cougars since their inaugural season in Canada West in 2012-13. After leading rookies in goals that first season, she continued to improve each season, culminating with a career-best 11 goals this season as the team’s top scorer.
In the classroom, Weninger has achieved a solid GPA of 3.66, cumulative over her last two academic semesters.
Off the ice, Weninger has balanced the responsibilities of sport and academics by donating time to several volunteer programs, including Hockey Alberta’s Hockey Education Reaching Out Society (HEROS) program. The program is built on the values of teaching life skills and inspiring marginalized youth through the values and team effort in hockey.
“I try my best to inspire the kids by just encouraging and supporting them in any way (that) I can,” Weninger told writer Mark Staffieri of York University. “Showing them that they can do so much more than they ever thought is something all of us volunteers try to inspire them with. While it is a program about hockey, it’s about so much more than that for these kids.”
In addition to HEROS, Weninger is also part of another unique program with Hockey Alberta's Future Leaders Camp.
“I would love to get involved in coaching after I am done,” said Weninger. “I may wait a year or two to see where my future career takes me, but coaching would be something I would want to do. I had a lot of great coaches throughout my hockey career and I would love to be able to give back to kids by coaching.”