No stopping Schuler now
PYEONGCHANG — She was too young to know it at the time, a 10- year- old hockey phenom growing up in a Toronto suburb just having fun and filling the net.
But from the moment Laura Schuler was bounced from a boys team in a Scarborough house league — a squad she remembers being called Dewey’s Dynamos — gender was a potential threat to hold her back.
It’s a bold new world for women’s hockey now, however, one that has the 47- year- old Schuler on the verge of making history as the first Canadian Olympic player to graduate to be the team’s head coach.
In what surely must be viewed as a progressive move for Hockey Canada, it’s also a testament to the full- circle growth the women’s game has enjoyed.
First back to Scarborough for a minute, where Schuler was not only talented but the leading scorer in her league as she regularly schooled the young boys she played against. It didn’t sit well with some meddlesome hockey parents, however, and that was that.
The decision to block Schuler from displaying her skills against the other sex was controversial at the time and one indicative of the issues women would face for years to come.
“I got kicked out when I was the league’s leading scorer and it was because I was a girl,” Schuler said on Wednesday. “I just wanted to play with my friends. I was pretty young but it was definitely devastating.”
Later such actions would be challenged and later reversed making it easier for younger girls to have an opportunity to hone their skills. When another Toronto- area player named Justine Blainey went to the Ontario Supreme Court in 1986 and won a landmark case, things would start to change. There was no such precedent to help Schuler, however.
Denied the opportunity to play on boys’ teams, Schuler played with girls three and four years older on the Toronto Aeros. She was strong enough to hold her own there while also getting the opportunity to skate alongside future Olympic teammates Angela James and Geraldine Heaney.
If there was ever any lingering bitterness for Schuler it would seem that it has waned now. Once her playing days were done, she transitioned into coaching and rapidly moved up the ranks.
There was a midget AA team in Stouffville, Ont., a head coaching gig at her NCAA alma mater, Northeastern and an assistant’s job at Minnesota- Duluth. Currently, she juggles her Canada job with the head coaching duties at Dartmouth College.
Schuler wouldn’t have been handed the landmark Olympic position if she wasn’t capable, but it’s certainly a source of pride at Hockey Canada headquarters. While developing players always carried the most profile, grooming coaches also was part of the grand plan.
“In the days of ( former bosses) Murray Costello and Bob Nicholson through to now, we’ve always prided themselves at being in the forefront and leaders of the women’s game,” Team Canada general manager and two- time gold medal winning coach Melody Davidson said. “And that meant female leadership. Laura is the next step. And now the fact that we have a first generation Olympian as a coach - we couldn’t be happier.”
Rather than rue the opportunities denied, Schuler was determined to find a path that would give her a lifetime in the game she loves. There almost certainly were more male- generated roadblocks, but none prohibitive enough to hold her back.
“( Coaching) is something that is very male dominated but at the same time I’ve been really blessed with the men I’ve had around me,” Schuler said. “Everyone wants to be the best they can be and help their athletes be at their very best and it doesn’t matter if it’s a female or male coaching them. What matters is having people who care around you.
“That is something that Hockey Canada has helped to cultivate. I’ve been very lucky to be a part of that.”
Being a player on that first Olympic team at the 1998 Nagano Game was a mixed blessing for Schuler and her teammates. The silver medal remains the only non gold for the Canadian women, but the historic significance will forever enshrine her as a trailblazer.
“It was something we never knew was going to come to fruition and hen the IOC made that announcement in 1994, everybody was like ‘ this is a dream come true,’ ” Schuler said of the reaction around the women’s hockey world.
“For me to make the first team was such an incredibly special moment and now to come full circle and be the head coach of this team … I couldn’t be more proud and honoured to represent my country again.”