By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

150 girls take part in first Hockey Alberta Female Hockey Day

Dec 16, 2018 | 3:30 PM

By all accounts, the first ever Hockey Alberta Female Hockey Day was a resounding success.

The event, which culminated with a CWHL game between the Calgary Inferno and Toronto Furies, was held Saturday at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre in Red Deer.

More than 150 female youth took part in on-ice and off-ice sessions, including ones which focused on refereeing and coaching.

Inferno blueliner and member of Team Canada Brigette Lacquette spoke about the experience.

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“Living in such a small community, I didn’t really get to meet a lot of big names, but I remember I got some stuff signed by Jordin Tootoo when he played in the WHL, and I thought that was pretty cool. I remember being that small and being kind of in awe by it,” she said.

The Olympic silver medallist, who became the first ever First Nations member of the team when it was in PyeongChang earlier this year, added that speaking with all the young girls was a blast.

“Since the Olympics, I’ve kind of been going around from community to community basically encouraging kids to stay active, stay in school and find something you love, something that you’re passionate about and stick with it,” Lacquette said. “Doing this kind of stuff, it’s super. I just have a lot of fun doing it and seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces; that’s the biggest part.”

Fellow CWHL player and second-year Toronto Furies forward Jessica Platt has also forged a path of her own to the top levels of women’s hockey. Earlier this year, the 29-year-old from Sarnia, ON came out as a transgender woman.

She said her story is hopefully one that shows young girls they can go as far as they believe they can.

“At 18 or 19, I got to the natural point where people tend to either quit hockey or start playing in beer leagues, so I tried the beer league thing for a year and it wasn’t for me,” she said.

“The atmosphere surrounding hockey had just gotten kind of intolerable for me because I had realized I was transgender and I needed to do something to change my life. So I quit hockey and started trying to figure out what I needed to do to get to where I wanted to be which ultimately was just to be happy with who I am.”

Now “extremely” happy and playing the game she loves once again, Platt said it is unfortunate that women’s sports still get pushed to the backburner most of the time.

“Some people don’t think females belong in sports, but that’s completely wrong,” she said. “Female Hockey Day in Alberta is incredible to show that they can have an active, healthy lifestyle, play the sport they love, and that they’re going to be supported.”

Taryn Baumgardt, Female Hockey Coordinator with Hockey Alberta, said Female Hockey Day will continue yearly and likely move around the province.

“It’s been a really fun day. The Calgary Inferno have done an amazing job promoting this, coming out and helping throughout the day, and that’s been really important for the girls,” Baumgardt said.

“The end goal is to celebrate and promote female hockey and female athletes across the province, to support the female game and to try and grow it.”

In the evening game at the Canada Games Centre, Toronto defeated Calgary 4-1 in front of 800 fans, according to the game summary.