Peterborough pioneers still going strong
The Electric Collective captured the Ontario 55+ Winter Games championship in February
Some of the pioneers of women’s hockey in the Peterborough area are still going strong in their 50s and 60s.
In their first season together the Electric Collective captured the Ontario 55+ Winter Games women’s hockey championship in Orillia in February and will represent the province at the Canadian 55+ Games in Quebec City from Aug. 27 to 30.
Featuring former Canadian national team player Andria Hunter, former University of Toronto stalwart Michelle Rosenberg, original Peterborough Girls Hockey Association standout Kelleigh Hartnett and former national floor hockey team player Tanya Esson, among others, the team took the province by storm in its inaugural season.
They won a pre-qualifying tournament to advance to the provincial tourney, where they went undefeated at 4-0, clinching the title with a 3-1 win over the Mississauga Legends in the final game. Peterborough also qualified a 60+ women’s team for provincials, who went 0-4 in Orillia.
A number of the women had played in prior years for District 12 teams but Rosenberg felt there was enough talent from Peterborough to ice a team. She recruited the players and served as player-coach with a couple of recruits from Durham Region. They have also recruited Hockey Hall of Fame player
Angela James to join them for nationals. James played for a Stouffville team that didn’t qualify for nationals. The top two teams advance to Quebec City with Mississauga joining the Electric Collective or “Sparks” as they call each other, said Rosenberg.
“I used to play competitive hockey and started the Peterborough Skyway women’s AAA team in the 1990s in the Central Ontario League and played for the University of Toronto at the height of their success,” said Rosenberg. “Andria Hunter has played at an even higher level than I did. In some ways, this has been even more thrilling for all of us. Once we finished our competitive hockey, ball hockey, baseball, soccer — we all come from different backgrounds — nobody ever imagined we would have an opportunity to compete at provincials and go to nationals at this stage of our lives. It’s incredibly thrilling.”
She said they have a gratitude that comes with maturity.
“When you’re younger and play high-level sports, you expect to win and expect there will be many more years of this kind of thing. All of us realize we may never get this opportunity again,” she said. “We didn’t imagine we would ever get this opportunity, so it’s deeply rewarding in a different way.”
She said the women on her team grew up in an era where the opportunities didn’t exist like they do today for girls and women in hockey. There was no Olympic team or Professional Women’s Hockey League.
“For a number of us, there was no girls team, you played on a boys team or they had all male coaches because that’s the way it was,” she said.
Not all of the players come from elite hockey backgrounds.
“What’s really gratifying to me is that, while we have all these topend players who know a lot more than me, and I’m intimidated trying to run a practice with people who have been on Team Canada,” said Rosenberg, “probably a third to half of our team has never played more than house league or senior-C. They’ve never had a practice before or had this level of structure. They’ve never learned a breakout before or a forechecking system or those things, and for those of us who played at a higher level, (they) were part of our practices. We have women who have this really high athletic IQ, who have taken this in and really want to learn and get better.”
The family business of one player, Poppy Gillingham — Randy Gillingham Heating and Cooling — provided the team with their home and away jerseys and socks.
The Electric Collective will represent the province at the Canadian 55+ Games in Quebec City from Aug. 27 to 30