National Post (National Edition)
Olympics on Hayley’s radar
Hayley Wickenheiser is accustomed to people doubting her ability to pull off the seemingly impossible.
At the 2006 Turin Olympics, she somehow potted five goals and collected 12 assists with a broken hand. Then, at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, she registered five points in five games skating on a broken foot.
Wickenheiser now is 38 and coming off surgery in February of 2015 to have a metal plate and eight screws installed in that bothersome left paw.
So she is hardly shocked by whispers she might not make it to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“It’s just the nature of the beast,” the six-time Olympian said with a sigh Friday before signing autographs for a gaggle of preteens at the seventh-annual Canadian Tire Wickenheiser Female World Hockey Festival. “As you get older as an athlete, everybody has their own impression of what you should be doing.
“I don’t listen to any of it. I just do my own thing.”
As per usual, the fourtime Olympic gold medallist is crazy busy doing her own thing both on and off the ice.
On Thursday, a very important package arrived at her house from the University of Calgary.
Inside: her Master of Science degree — the proverbial gold medal for her labour-of-love thesis into changes in cerebral blood flow for young adults with autism after high-intensity exercise.
She skipped the convocation ceremonies so as not to put her teenage son Noah through the agony of what can be a tedious process for those in the crowd.
“I went to my Bachelor of Science convocation, and that was good,” Wickenheiser said.
“This time, I got the piece of paper and now I can move on to the next thing.”
The next thing — from an educational standpoint — is medical school, but Wickenheiser is waiting for Noah to graduate from Grade 12 before making the leap.
In the meantime, she is immersed in her duties as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s athletes commission and the operation of her wildly popular hockey festival.
(Wickfest attracts more than 2,500 female participants from around the world to Winsport’s Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.)
On the ice, she’s building on a summer of intense training with an eye to representing Canada at the 2017 world championships in Michigan and, ultimately, the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.
She simply scoffs at concerns over her age or the hardware in her foot.
“None of that is a big deal,” she said. “I’m skating and feeling really strong. The harder thing is running when you have a plate in your foot. The sideways movement is not as difficult. Your foot is more stable in a skate. “It’s all manageable.” Even when others worry it isn’t.