The Ice Dominator
/One of the most goal-oriented women in Canadian history is a well-known hockey player named Hayley Wickenheiser. She has impacted the Canadian hockey league for many generations. She is one of the most successful female hockey players in this whole country.
Incase you don’t know who this phenomenal player is, Hayley was the first women to play full-time professional men’s hockey in a position other than goalie. She is also a resident physician and assistant general manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Hayley began her journey in August of 1978 when she was born. Her parents are Tom and Marilyn Wickenheiser. She had two siblings who were Jane and Ross. She had a normal teen life until the age of 13 when she began her career playing on male teams. Many of her teammates called her “The annihilator”. Then she finally got a big break, when she helped Team Alberta win the gold in the Canada Winter Games event in the under-17 category which at the time girls weren’t really taken seriously in the hockey league.
After that tournament she named MVP, the first of many awards that she should win in her entire career. In 2003, Wickenheiser became the first woman to score a goal player in the men’s semi professional league. Over the course season, she played 23 games, scoring two goals and adding 10 assists. Wickenheiser’s journey there was not easy to get to this point. She joined the European league to play professional hockey as the game is more open and less physical than the North American League. She initially wanted to play in Italy but then confederation ruled that women were ineligible to play in a men’s league. The European league supported letting women play in the men’s league which lead to her debut in the Suomi Sarja team called “HC Salamat”. It was the 3rd highest hockey league in Finland. She left after 10 games when the team ended up getting a promotion that didn’t fit for her.
She then participated in her first international competition with the CWN team at the age of 15. Then in 2010, she won six gold and three silver world championship medals. She found even greater success when in 2002 according to her national website “Hayley Wickenheiser Biography”, she captured the gold medal as well as being the tournaments top scorer and MVP. She then repeated that again at the 2006 games. She has won numerous national championships with the Edmonton Chimos, Calgary Oval X-Treme and in 2010, she joined the University of Calgary Dinos for the 2010-2011 University season.
She was a member of the Canada’s national ice hockey team for 23 years from 1994 until announcing her retirement on January 13, 2017. A lot of people were very upset when she announced that she wasn’t going to play hockey anymore since she was such a great and enthusiastic player. She still to this day is the team’s career points leader with 168 goals and 211 assists in 276 games which is super impressive. In 2019 after her retirement, she was named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility. She was then inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in the same year. She deserved this after all her hard work in the hockey league.
When she decided to help the Toronto Maple Leafs by being their assistant general manager, I remember seeing her talent help the team. My parents weren’t big Toronto fans, but they loved seeing her improvements she was making to the team.
Wickenheiser took a shot and scored her goal into the Hall of Fame. So many women including myself will be and have been impacted by this hockey legend. Her goals will stand the puck of time.
Hi I’m Zoe Farmer. I am a 20 year old, second year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. I normally spend my time watching movies and listening to podcasts. I write horror stories mixed with a little sprinkle of romance. I want to direct and make my own stories into movies like James Cameron.
