Weatherston bringing in girls’ hockey school

Katie Weatherston is giving back to the sport she loves.
A member of Canada’s Olympic gold medal-winning women’s hockey team in Turino, Italy this past winter, Weatherston is spending what little free time she has this summer teaching the game at her all-girl hockey school.
For Weatherston, running the school represents an opportunity to give young female hockey players a chance to learn from someone who’s reached the pinnacle of the sport.
“I think it’s good I can give back and guide those girls in the right direction,” she said.
“I didn’t feel like I had that guidance back then [when she was growing up] because women’s hockey was still developing,” Weatherston added. “I didn’t really know what was out there for women’s hockey.”
Weatherston founded Katie’s All-Girls Hockey School for players aged eight-16 last summer in Thunder Bay.
Encouraged by the positive response, Weatherston decided to expand the camp this year and take it on the road to Fort Frances and Kenora.
“They [the girls] loved having something specifically for them,” she said of the response she got from those who attended the camp in Thunder Bay last summer.
“There’s not really many girls’ hockey schools out there or hockey schools that are just specifically for girls,” she noted. “I just thought this year it would be nice to get into the Fort Frances and Kenora area and just keep trying to promote women’s hockey in the north.”
Offering the camp in Fort Frances was a particularly attractive prospect due to the lack of hockey schools being run here this summer.
“I talked to Dave Allison and I wanted to continue what he started there [in Fort Frances],” Weatherston said.
“I knew with his camp not running, there would be a void for women’s hockey. I thought it would be something exciting, especially coming off the Olympics.”
Eleven-year-old Emily Drouin certainly is excited to attend Weatherston’s hockey school next month.
Drouin is relatively new to the game, having never played in an organized league, but she can’t wait to get out on the ice and start learning the finer points of hockey.
The fact she will be learning from an Olympic gold-medalist promises to make the experience that much more memorable.
“It’s cool to meet someone that is actually known to be good at her sport,” Drouin said.
“When you’re watching NHL, it’s mostly guy hockey players. But seeing someone [a woman] that’s been successful in hockey, it means a lot,” she added.
Drouin and the rest of the girls attending the school certainly will have every opportunity to ask Weatherston as many questions as they want.
In addition to being on the ice with the Olympian for an hour and 15 minutes in the morning, Weatherston plans to run classroom sessions centered around goal-setting and give motivational speeches to encourage the girls to strive for greatness.
During the sessions, she also will teach proper warm-up and cool down regimens, as well as off-ice training techniques.
One of the unique aspects of Weatherston’s school is the Olympic question-and-answer period.
Each of the girls in attendance will have the opportunity to ask questions concerning Weatherston’s Olympic experience in an effort to get a sense of what it was like to compete on the world stage.
But while hockey undoubtedly is the main focus of the four-day camp, Weatherston also is stressing the social aspects of the game.
“It’s built around hockey, but there are valuable learning lessons they take away from it. It goes beyond hockey,” she stressed.
“It’s a social thing, too. The girls love it because they meet new friends,” she added. “At the end of last camp, they were exchanging phone numbers and e-mails so it was really great to see that.
“It just brings together all the girls that have a common interest.”
There still are openings available in Katie’s All-Girls Hockey School on July 24-27. For more information or to register, visit www.northernedgehockey.com