Ice Kats experience pays off for Paulson
After a year of PWHL junior hockey with the Central York Panthers, former Ice Kats player to suit up with York University women’s team
Sydney Paulson cried when she made the Peterborough Ice Kats peewees seven years ago.
The Fenelon Falls native didn’t want to leave her Sturgeon Lake Thunder teammates. She played with boys before joining the Ice Kats.
Now she’s convinced she would have never fulfilled her dream to play junior hockey or earn a scholarship to the York University women’s hockey program had she not gone to Peterborough.
“I never would have had the success or exposure,” Paulson said. “I didn’t want to go to Peterborough for the tryouts but my parents saw something special in me and really pushed me to go.”
Her first Ice Kats coach was Teresa Hutchinson, now York’s assistant coach.
“When Teresa told me I was on the team I cried when I got in the car because I was so upset I made the team,” she said.
“I didn’t want to leave my friends but then I came to Peterborough and I made my best friends.
“I would always want to make that choice again. I learned so much especially from Teresa because I had never been taught the structure of hockey.”
She also learned a lot from Mark McArthur, her coach of four years, and Bond Bjorgan.
After six years in Peterborough she was recruited by the Central York Panthers of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League. She made the move with Ice Kats teammate Laruen Bell who has committed to the University of Waterloo Warriors.
“I was super heartbroken to leave my friends because I’d been with Peterborough since peewee. It wasn’t a hard decision to go to the PWHL because I knew it was best for my hockey career,” she said.
“It was nice to have Lauren with me. It made the move easier. I definitely noticed the difference and competitiveness and how everyone takes it so much more seriously.
“The speed of the game is so much quicker. The way you have to think the game once you move from midget to junior changes.
“You have to anticipate things you would never anticipate in midget. You have to anticipate it way before it happens or you’ll be left out of the play. I’m not small but I’m not the biggest girl either and it’s so much more physical.”
Paulson said the PWHL is where girls strive to play.
“At provincials we’d all go watch the junior games,” she said. “That’s every girl’s goal, to play junior hockey. It’s the best junior league in the world so it’s pretty cool to be able to play in it.”
In addition to being reunited with Hutchinson, she was impressed by York head coach Dan Church and the quality of the team which reached the national championship tournament this year.
“It’s not too far from home which is really important to me and they have a really great criminology program,” Paulson said.
“Teresa came up to me at a midget tournament and told me she was at York and to keep it in mind if it was a school I was interested in because Dan had been looking at me. It will be nice to see a familiar face going in.”
“Sydney is a great kid with really good hockey sense,” Hutchinson said.
“She goes where the puck is and knows where the puck is going and is a kid who can put the puck in the net.”
Hutchinson called Paulson “a gamer” who works at improving her game.
“She likes to bust the zone and happens to be in the right spot at the right time. The puck likes to follow her around. She’s a natural,” Hutchinson said. “Her hockey sense and ability to find the puck and make the play, especially in Peterborough, was a skill you really didn’t see a lot.”