Females are facing an off-ice fight at all levels of hockey
HELSINKI — Kaetlyn Osmond was just three when she first skated in front of a crowd, performing as a Teletubby in her skating club’s annual ice show in Marystown, N.L.
“There was one year I was a flower. I looked pretty cute as a flower. I had a really big pink helmet,” Osmond said.
Skating at such a small club in a town of about 5,500, she said, virtually everyone was invited to skate in the annual show.
“As long as I could skate on my own I was in the show,” said Osmond.
She can’t remember a time she didn’t love the spotlight, and it’s a big reason she has excelled in a sport where “you’re literally in a fish bowl ... and the world is watching.”
On Friday night, the 21-year-old was last to step on the Hartwell Arena ice, and unleashed the performance of her life to capture a silver medal at the world figure skating championships. Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, Ont., won bronze.
It was the first time Canada had put two women on the world medal podium, and the country’s first medal since Joannie Rochette captured silver in 2009.
“You can’t teach some of the qualities she has,” said Ravi Walia, her coach of 11 years. “You can see now as an adult, she has a lot of charisma, and she’s a very fierce competitor. She’s always had that.”
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won gold in ice dance, sending Canada home from Finland with three medals. But, it was Canada’s two young women, who had flirted with international success all season, who stole the spotlight.
Osmond left Marystown for Montreal when she was just nine, to live and train with her older sister Natasha. They lived for a couple of months with coach Josee Picard before their aunt moved to Montreal “pretty much to be our nanny.” A year later, her parents — mom Jackie and dad Jeff — who work in the oil business decided to relocate the family to Sherwood Park, Alta.
Osmond maintains strong ties to Newfoundland, where her older brother and sister live. During the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Tim Hortons there sold a pink “Kaetlyn Osmond” donut. Marystown has named a rink and a street after her.
Her solid skates in Helsinki were a major breakthrough coming only a year after she didn’t qualify for the world team. She’s been on the mend — emotionally as much as physically — after badly breaking her leg in the fall of 2014.
“I didn’t know that there was still a bit of doubt in me. I doubted myself a lot last year and doubted my ability to be able to come back and perform at my absolute best,” she said. “It wasn’t until I hit my ending position that I realized that I am back. I feel so much better, and after everything that I’ve been through, it was worth it.”
Daleman, who started skated at four, set her sights on the Olympics after watching Joannie Rochette finish fifth in 2006 in Turin. The 19-year-old was eight at the time.
“I told my parents ‘That’s what I want to do, I want to represent Canada, I want to go to the worlds, I want to go to the Olympics, I want to win medals,’” Daleman said.
“My parents know me, when I set my mind to something I’m very dedicated. I told my dad last year that I wanted to medal at worlds, and my dad took it as a joke. He was like ‘OK, say what you want.’ And then I come here, and he’s like ‘Wow, she actually did it.’ When I set my mind to something, I’ll go after it.”
The emergence of the two ends a drought for Canadian women, who — other than Rochette and Elizabeth Manley before her — have largely skated in the shadow of the men, ice dancers and pairs teams.
Osmond and Daleman are the product of a new approach in Canadian skating, which long held the belief that teaching triple jumps at a young age could jeopardize their health as they were growing.
“What we started to see across the world was these young skaters coming up doing all the triples at a young age, at 13, 14, so when they went through their growth period, they didn’t lose the stuff,” said Mike Slipchuk, Skate Canada’s high performance director. “Whereas our skaters ... after all the growth and maturity, were then trying to learn it, which was much harder.”
Canada’s next event is the World Team Trophy in two weeks in Tokyo.
PLYMOUTH, Mich. — The best women’s hockey players in the U.S. can now make a living playing the sport they love thanks to a landmark agreement with USA Hockey reached after a threat to boycott the world championship. The deal will likely help their counterparts north of the border make more money in their next Olympic agreement with Hockey Canada.
Even those who will benefit, though, acknowledge the off-ice fight isn’t over.
At every level of female hockey, from pre-teen girls to college to post-graduate players, there are obstacles.
“Women’s hockey has come a long way with the amount of teams that are popping up and support and visibility,” said Meghan Duggan, captain of the Americans’ team playing in the world championship. “I think it has a long way to go, and I’m excited to push it ahead. I’m certainly proud to be someone standing up for women’s hockey and really trying to get it to move forward. I look forward to see how far women’s hockey is going go.”
In a border town about 300 miles north of suburban Detroit, a new USA Hockey rule appears to be having unintended consequences for girls trying to find their stride.
The Soo Lady Lakers, an organization based in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., participated in the state’s Tier II 14-and-under tournament with just 11 girls that were mostly from Canada and 12 years old or younger. Beginning next season a USA Hockey rule states, no player 12 years or younger is eligible to play on a team intending or declared to compete in district or national championships.
M a l o r y M c C o r m i c k , w h o coached the Lakers at this year’s tournament, said the girls on her team that are not old enough to play 14U hockey next year have limited options. They can drive 2-plus hours, each way, to join a 12U team in Kalkaska, Mich.; play with 12U boys in their area; participate in house hockey with girls just learning how to skate; or quit playing the sport.
“It’s heartbreaking to tell the girls I don’t know what our team will look like next year,” McCormick said.
Kristen Wright, USA Hockey’s manager of girls’ player development, said the new rule was put in place for safety and development reasons because girls usually hit a growth spurt at about 13.
“The rule hasn’t gone into effect yet and we want to see what’s going to happen,” Wright said in a telephone interview Saturday night. “We think more good than bad will come up this, but we’ll review this over time and we’ll see how it changes the landscape of the game.”
Given the chance to comment on this story with a conversation or email, Michigan Amateur Hockey Association President George Atkinson repeatedly declined on Sunday.
In the same week that USA Hockey gave in to demands from its top-calibre women, females in the sport had a setback when the University of North Dakota eliminated its women’s hockey team. Eight players from the program represented three countries in the 2014 Olympics, including Monique Lamoureux-Morando, who plays defence for the U.S.
Lamoureux-Morando, who was a volunteer assistant coach for the program last season, said players on the team found out about the decision on Twitter.
“To have that happen and then the way in which they found out that their team was cut is just in my opinion very unacceptable,” Lamoureux-Morando said.
At the next level of women’s hockey, a professional league in Canada and another in the U.S. are trying to make it independently. At least some women who play for both leagues wish the five-team Canadian Women’s Hockey League would merge with the four-team National Women’s Hockey League to become one. That might help the sport gain support from the NHL, which could potentially financially back the best women in the game as the NBA does with the WNBA.
For the first time, though, there’s hope for girls aspiring to play hockey as a career when they become women.