Orange Corners teen off to Canadian Women’s U18 Championship
Abby Brumwell’s North York Storm won gold at provincials to clinch spot at national tournament in British Columbia
With two provincial hockey championships under her belt, Abby Brumwell begins her search for a national title on Sunday.
The 14-year-old from Orange Corners helped the Holy Cross Hurricanes win an OFSAA AA championship last month. On Sunday, she won an Ontario Women’s Hockey Association provincial U18 title with the North York Storm. The Storm will represent Ontario at the Esso Cup Canadian Women’s U18 Championship in Vernon, B.C., on Sunday through April 27. Her mother, Christi Brumwell, is the Storm’s trainer.
“It’s been incredible. Definitely one of my biggest years in hockey,” said Brumwell, a Grade 9 student at Holy Cross.
She played for the Peterborough Ice Kats for six years until North York coach Tim Halloran approached her in the off-season with an opportunity to play up two age levels.
“I really liked the idea of having a challenge to push myself to be able to compete against older girls and elite level girls,” said Brumwell.
She was one of 10 girls playing up in age with the idea of building the team toward a provincial or national championship calibre squad in a year or two.
They were early bloomers. The Storm posted a 51-7-8 record on the way to qualifying for provincials. There they went undefeated in six games. Brumwell, a right wing, had a goal and was named player of the game in a 3-1 quarter-final win over the Sudbury Wolves. They beat the Waterloo Ravens 3-1 in the semifinals. Brumwell added two assists in a 5-2 win over the North Halton Twisters in the final.
“We were expecting to be middle of the pack and for the year after to be one of the stronger teams,” she said.
“As we really started to get into the season, we realized how strong our team was going to be. We’ve been ranked first in the province all year, only flipping into second once at the beginning of the year.”
She says their success is related to how well they bonded.
“We’re very family-like. It felt like home when you’re at the rink,” she said. “We rely on each other and play for each other. It was never like, ‘I want to get this goal.’ It didn’t matter, we were doing it for the team. Along with our skill, it created this family where we needed to succeed for each other.”
It was a similar story with Holy Cross. It was the first year the school had iced a team in the Kawartha league in more than a decade, and they went all the way in their first season.
“It was definitely our goal to win OFSAA, but we never really thought we were going to get there. It was like, this is the goal and then it was one step at a time,” she said.
It was a big commitment to play in North York as mother and daughter drove there for practice, dryland training and video review each Monday and Thursday in addition to weekend games. The coaches let her work around her high school hockey schedule. Meanwhile her father Jason and brother Landen, who plays for the Holy Cross boys team and Kawartha Coyotes U18s, headed in other directions.
“It was definitely a big commitment and a lot of driving. I did a lot of homework in the car and slept on the way home. It was worth every minute,” she said.
At nationals, they’ll face champions from the Pacific, West, Quebec and Atlantic regions as well as the hosts. They play each team once in a round-robin, with the top four advancing to semifinals.
“We’re not too sure what to expect,” said Brumwell. “There will be some good competition. They all had to win their own provincials to get there, so we can’t really underestimate anyone.”