Islanders help lead Canada juniors to field-hockey success
The logistics of travelling to play sports in South America in a pandemic are daunting, to say the least. But Canada, with four Island players, overcame the hurdles and restrictions to advance to the 2021 field-hockey junior women’s World Cup by winning the regional qualifying tournament played Aug. 21-28 in Santiago, Chile.
Canada went undefeated, beating Uruguay 1-0 in the final on a goal by Anna Mollenhauer of Victoria.
“It was kind of surreal with a lot of challenges the past 18 months, wondering is this tournament going to happen, is not going to happen,” said Mollenhauer. “But we got in a six-week centralization camp in Vancouver and the players had a lot of trust in each other.”
Sara Goodman of Duncan, out of Cowichan High, was captain of the Canadian team, Mollenhauer, a St. Michaels University School graduate, the assistant captain, with Stefanie Sajko out of Mount Douglas Secondary and Nora Struchtrup out of Oak Bay also national squad members. Mollenhauer, Sajko and Struchtrup play in Canada West for the University of Victoria Vikes and Goodman with the UBC Thunderbirds.
The future looks bright for the Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. “It fuels the fire for the future,” said Mollenhauer.
The Canadian team manager is Nancy Mollenhauer, mother of Anna. “This was a big step for our program. A lot of these players will be on the senior national team in a couple of years,” said the elder Mollenhauer. “Every once in a while you get a group of players who just mesh, who just gel. In going through what we went through just to get there and play, everybody had to rely on one another.”
Nancy Mollenhauer knows a thing or two about special groups. She was part of one herself on the heavily Island-tinged national team of the 1980s in playing in the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Olympics and winning silver and bronze medals in the 1983 and 1986 World Cups.
“This is one of the best junior teams we’ve had in Canada in a while,” said Nancy Mollenhauer, the Canadian flagbearer in the opening ceremony of the 1987 Pan American Games.
“Our juniors qualified through trying circumstances. Foreign spectators were not allowed for the qualifier in Chile. No fans were allowed at the beginning but that was lifted as the situation got better in Santiago and 200 to 500 fans were allowed in. And even a few hundred made the noise of several thousand, in that South American way, with drumming and singing during our win over Chile in the semifinals.”
With the daughter following the mother as an international, this is a multi-generational sports story. “I will often ask my mom for guidance and advice because she has gone through similar situations,” said Anna Mollenhauer.
Canada advanced to the 2021 junior World Cup from Dec. 15-16 in Potchefstroom, South Africa.