Lecavalier hopeful for Team Alberta’s U18

Times Reporter 

 

Hockey player Sarah Lecavalier recently competed in the Team Alberta Challenge with 119 girls; from there, the young ladies can qualify for Team Alberta U16. Sarah, however, along with 10 others, was asked to move up to Team Alberta’s U18 tryouts. She was the only girl from Strathmore invited to tryouts.

From May 10 – 12, 88 players invited from across the province traveled up to Spruce Grove for U18 fitness testing, skills practices, and three games. Lecavalier unfortunately got injured in the second match up.

“I got hit like really weird, this girl came and I don’t know if it was a stick or an elbow, “ Lecavalier said. “But I got hit in the front of the ribs and it tore my kidney.”

She was in hospital for five days, and is still recuperating painfully. What she was most concerned about was missing the rest of the second game (where she only played two shifts) and the entirety of the third game.

The team was cut down to 46 young ladies, and though Sarah missed part of the weekend, she is invited to continue on with tryouts come July in Camrose. This will involve more skill sessions, on ice practices, and fitness training. After that, the 46 will go to a tournament in September, where the team will make their final cuts down to 23. Those 23 will represent Team Alberta U18, starting at the National’s Tournament in November taking place in Calgary.

“I know that’s the path you take to get to U22, to get to the National Team, to get to the Olympic Team,” Sarah’s mother, Nelia said. “You actually have to be on these teams to be selected.”

Lecavalier played on the boys’ Bantam AA team this past year, the Wheatland Warriors, where she tied for top scorer in the league. 

“They were a great group…we’ve kind of had a relationship like no other team would have,” she said.

Moving to playing with girls is a big change for Lecavalier, who has been playing with boys since she was five-years-old.

“It’s a really different game. The boys it’s like dump and chase, you’re on them, and you have support. But with girls, it’s all about control and positioning. Like, it’s much smarter,” Lecavalier said. “You have to think about everything you’re doing.”

Team Alberta Girls’ scouts typically would never recruit from boys leagues; they would have missed out on her tremendous skill. If Sarah fails to make U18, she knows at least a spot is saved for her on U16 — though skipping that initial step would be supremely beneficial to building her game.

Lecavalier feels her work along the boards, her shot, and her speed bring up her confidence on the ice but she still “needs to get to know (the other) girls’ games more for sure; they have a lot of different systems.”

As an underage player in the U18 division, this process is all new for the Lecavalier family. 

“When playing with boys, we play during the year, we have spring off, she does lacrosse, we have summer off, we train, and then we go back on the ice. So this whole thing with the U16, and the U18, and Team Alberta, I have no clue what happens,” Nelia said. 

Sarah may have to move from home, or study on her own with the team. The 15-year-old says she’s ready.

“I didn’t really get opportunities like this, just playing with boys,” Lecavalier said. “But it’s pretty exciting.”