For Erin McIvor, a former Fort Frances resident, hockey isn’t everything but it is a big part of her life–and she doesn’t want to see it end anytime soon.
“I would love to go all the way to the Olympics but, realistically, that is not going to happen for me,” McIvor admitted. “[But] hopefully, hockey won’t end for me when school does.
“I plan on coaching also so who knows where that will take me,” she added.
McIvor, 19, is playing hockey this season for the York University women’s team (where she’s majoring in Kinesiology). She said this was her first time trying out for a team in southern Ontario, and that making the squad was her biggest accomplishment so far in hockey.
“This is my first year but tryouts were really good,” she enthused. “They were hard but I worked hard this summer to get ready.”
McIvor stressed the games are much different than she was used to–or even expecting.
“Everything is so much more fast-paced,” she noted. “All of these girls have played for some type of ‘AA’ team. The hockey is really different from what I was used to in Fort Frances.”
McIvor plays winger but she said things can change so fast.
“In practice, I sometimes do all three [centre, winger, and defence] because I understand all the positions and I never know when they will need me in someplace different,” she reasoned.
It wasn’t until she was six years old, and her family moved to Fort Frances from Thunder Bay, that McIvor wanted to start playing hockey.
“There wasn’t any hockey here except for minor hockey,” she recalled. “I don’t think I even considered ringette in Emo so I just played minor hockey with the boys.”
She noted it’s about time Fort High started up a girls’ hockey team.
“I am really happy over the high school team–it is about time,” she stressed. “I just wish it would have happened a little sooner so I could have played.”
Noting the local girls’ hockey program has gotten more ice time in recent years, McIvor said if the girls from Fort Frances want to be able to compete with those from southern Ontario, there is no substitute for ice time.
“I had more ice time within the first two weeks of tryouts [at university] than I had had in about the last two years in Fort Frances,” she remarked.