BONNYVILLE – A conversation between two U11 Jaguars coaches over a long drive back from a hockey tournament sparked the idea behind the very first female hockey camp to be held in the Lakeland region.
The Lakeland Female Development Camp will be the first of its kind to be offered in the Lakeland and is one of only a handful of all-female hockey camps offered in the province.
Both Jena Colbourne and Roz Klassen are Hockey Alberta Certified coaches and are the co-organizers behind the female development camp.
“We got to talking about how back in the day there was not a lot of opportunities [for women] to move on to college play, AA teams, or anything like that and how cool it is that now there is a lot of focus on female hockey,” Colbourne told Lakeland This Week.
Now the pair, both former hockey players themselves, are among those expanding opportunities for the next generation of female athletes to develop their hockey skills locally.
The five-day camp is set to take place at the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre (C2) from Aug. 21 to 25 and is expected to draw in about 100 to 150 registrants aged seven to 15 from all over the province.
The all-female hockey camp will utilize local female coaches, fitness instructors, sports professionals and graduated Jaguar players to design the camp. The program is specifically tailored to female hockey and to meet the social and emotional needs of female athletes.
“When I played it was whoever's brother or dad was free would coach us, but it wasn't the same focus as the boys' mainstream team got,” recalled Colbourne, thinking back on her own hockey career with the Elk Point Storm.
In the late 80s and early 90s, more and more female players wanted to play hockey, but their options were often limited to playing on co-ed teams in mainstream hockey leagues. The growing interest of girls wanting to compete increased the demand for all-female leagues.
“There was a big fight for females to get recognized in the sport. That took quite a long time, but now we've seen such big stars like Hayley Wickenheiser come out of it and Cassie Campbell-Pascall, who is doing sports announcing,” she noted. “We're seeing these females who have legitimate credentials doing really well. And a lot of girls are now like, ‘I want to do this’.”
Parents are also buying into the potential of female hockey too. At the arena, it's not out of place to hear parents discuss NCAA and college scholarships or the possibility of their daughters playing at the Olympics one day.
When Colbourne joined one of the first hockey leagues for females in the Lakeland in the late 90s and early 2000s, the purpose was to have fun and make friends. There was no belief that anything further would come of it, she said.
“There was such a long period of time where we had to legitimize that females could play hockey, and now people recognize – yes, they can play,” she said. Over the years, female hockey has moved forward – sometime by small steps and other times by leaps.
There is also a growing trend for girls to switch from mainstream to female leagues at earlier ages as more resources are made available. Colbourne believes this transition makes a big difference for the development and growth of female players.
“Bonding is the number one thing when you play female hockey – you're 100 per cent included in that team and that's so important for young people. Whereas if you play mainstream, the girls, once they hit the U13-level they can no longer change in the same room with the boys. So even though they do a good job at welcoming the girls right before it's time to change and then welcoming them back when [the games] is done, there's a lot that happens in the dressing room that they're not a part of,” Colbourne explained.
While Colbourne doesn’t necessarily believe youth hockey should be separated, she does feel there are many advantages to girls playing in a female program – team bonding and group spirit being two of those advantages.
“Girls really do respond in different ways than boys to development and leadership and they have different needs when it comes to mental health,” she said. “It's important to be able to develop those things in a different way.”
Early bird registration for the Lakeland Female Development Camp is $300 and is likely to increase by a minimum of $50 after May 30 – if there are any spot remaining.
“Spaces are filling up really quickly. We have more availability in our U15 category, [but] the younger ones have nearly sold out at this point,” noted Colbourne.
To keep the cost affordable for participants, Colbourne and Klassen have approached the Town of Bonnyville and the MD of Bonnyville seeking $4,000 to help cover the costs of the C2 facilities rental, which is estimated to cost $10,250. This includes one sheet of ice, one classroom and one field house over the five-day camp.
The Bonnyville Minor Hockey Association has provided a $1,500 grant to host the camp.
“I will always be an advocate for female hockey. I just think it's such a great program and we have a really strong league here in the Lakeland... It's fitting that you would have a development camp out of this region,” said Colbourne.
