Role I Played

Jo Small Sami

Description

Three-time Olympic medalist shares behind-the-scenes insight into the beloved Canadian National Women s Hockey TeamMen s hockey in Canada may hog the limelight, but interest in women s hockey has never been higher. The Role I Played is a memoir of Sami Jo Small s ten years with Canada s National Women s Hockey Team. Beginning with her experience as a rookie at the first-ever women s Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano in 1998 and culminating with Canada s third straight Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010, the veteran goaltender gives the reader behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most successful teams in sports history.Small offers insider access, writing with unflinching honesty about the triumphs of her greatest games and the anguish of difficult times. This book honours the individuals who sacrificed so much of their lives to represent Canada on a world stage and celebrates their individual contributions to the team s glory. While bringing

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 29 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781773056098
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Role I Played
Canada’s Greatest Olympic Hockey Team
Sami Jo Small


Contents Dedication Introduction Part 1 1. Becoming a Hockey Player 2. Improbable Circumstance 3. A Lifetime of Anticipation 4. Stars All Around Me 5. The First Ever Women’s Olympic Hockey Gold Part 2 6. Hockey’s My Future 7. What a Feeling 8. Hard Work Pays Off 9. New Environment 10. Stay Focused 11. Transitions 12. A New Role 13. The Beginnings of a Team 14. Becoming Olympians 15. Final Preparations 16. In Perfect Position 17. Olympic Debut 18. So Close 19. Olympic Final — Salt Lake City 20. Rewards of the Hardest Day Part 3 21. A Summer to Move On 22. Rededication 23. Two Seasons of Hockey 24. Olympic Preparations 25. Support Network 26. The Final Push 27. Final Team Selection 28. Accepting My Role 29. Gold Medal Day Part 4 30. Finding the Love 31. My Legacy 32. Finally, a Medal Epilogue Photos About the Author Copyright

Dedication
To Mom and Dad, thank you for encouraging play

Introduction
The Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team is one of the most successful teams in all of sports history. Not just women’s history, but all of history. The team won four straight Olympic gold medals from 2002 to 2014 and were World Champions for 14 straight years from 1990 to 2004. I was just a small cog in its operation, serving as a goaltender for 11 years, from 1997 to 2008. The most incredible aspects of being on this team were the people I was fortunate to meet and the adventures we took together all around the world.
This book took me nearly a decade to complete. I wrote the rudimentary bones of the book in just under a year, took another two years to research and fill in the blanks. I then had a baby while working full-time and doing what some will say was playing professional hockey and others will say was toiling away in obscurity.
Regardless, the book got put on the shelf while life took over: I dedicated myself to once again becoming the goalie I knew I could be, while working full-time as a professional speaker to earn the primary income for our family, while my husband pursued his Olympic dreams. Our laundry was filled with sweaty workout attire and baby clothes covered in spit-up — but I loved every moment.
When my daughter started kindergarten, I dusted off the manuscript and thought, N ow what? Thankfully, I had many I could call on for support, a vast network accrued over a lifetime of incredible opportunities.
With every story I wrote, I felt the raw emotions of those experiences all over again. I am thankful for the incredible support of my husband, who had to listen to me recount stories of big saves or bad games years later. I am sorry I often went to bed angry at having been cut from a team or sad that I had lost a loved one several decades ago.
The words written in this book are my recollections of events, but by no means do I accept them as fact. The mind can play tricks when we attempt to remember how life unfolded. Often, I’d write a section, then go back and watch game tape only to realize that situations did not transpire as I remembered them. Ultimately, the emotions in this book are real; while the facts may be disputed, I saw events from my perspective, and I am not too proud to realize that others will have different takes on the same story.
My good friends and long time teammates Jennifer Botterill and Cheryl Pounder and I all work as professional speakers, sharing stories of our successful team, but all the stories are different. The moments we accentuate are different and the people that had the greatest influence on us are varied.
I wanted to showcase my teammates, yes, but I didn’t want to write their stories: those are theirs to tell. These are my stories, from my perspective, about the events as they happened to me.
This is a story of hope, belief, and persistence.
To my goalie partners over the years, I owe you an immense debt of gratitude. I’m sorry you are often portrayed as the antagonist in this book. We were in constant competition. Only one goalie can be in the net. And I always wanted to play, but I learned everything I know from watching you. I often envied you in our competitive environment, but observing your skills, your professionalism, and your love of the game was a joy and my greatest honour is having been your teammate.
To my defencemen, I’m sorry I had to highlight your mistakes in this book. Often your mistake followed by my mistake led to a goal and this book is about a lot of goals. But know that I appreciate the thousands of good things that you did that went completely unnoticed by most but me. You are the true unsung heroes of the game.
I apologize to the coaches that are not always depicted in the best of light in these pages. In my bubble as a player, I didn’t have the maturity to see my coaches as people, with real lives, with real emotions. I’ve gained greater understanding with time, perspective, and the realization that I was not the only one you had to worry about. Through sport, you taught me valuable life skills. Every story needs villains, but I hold no grudges and hope you won’t. I have the utmost respect for each of you and the difficult decisions you had to make.
I am thankful to my first editor, Jacqueline Larson, who went back to the drawing board and taught me how to write and to Deirdre Norman and Kate Reddy-Taylor who were invaluable with their feedback. Also, thank you to all who were willing to spend time reading and rehashing moments that happened long ago. And thank you to Dave Bidini, the incredible musician and author, for putting me in touch with great people at my publishing house, ECW Press.
Ultimately, I want you, the reader, to understand what made our team successful. I want you to appreciate the various personalities that created the fabric of our team and how each person had an impact on me, how we impacted each other. We were all thrust into different roles throughout our careers, struggling to maximize our potential while still contributing to the team.
In 1997, during my first year with the National Team, I was asked to write a short message to the rest of my teammates travelling to an away game. I chose the quote, “To win the game is great. To play the game is greater but to love the game is the greatest.” In the end hockey gave me the greatest reward of all: I truly love the game.

Part 1

1. Becoming a Hockey Player
September 1997: My First Olympic Tryout
I’m alone in a large dressing room in Calgary, goalie bag at my feet. The room smells of the men’s league players from last night. I can hear the constant buzz of the refrigeration system. Nothing about this scene is new to me, aside from trying out for a women’s team.
This evaluation will seal my fate. I don’t know who will be with me on the ice. Play well today, and I stay to try out for a spot on the first ever Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team. Play just okay, and I’ll resume my life; catch tomorrow’s flight to California and start my senior year in engineering at Stanford University.
I’m on a full track and field scholarship to throw discus and javelin, but surprisingly I’m here in Calgary to be a goalie. Today is a special tryout just for me — Team Canada selected the rest of the 28 girls back in May. I didn’t know about those tryouts as I was playing on a men’s club team at Stanford away from scouts, away from the limelight, and away from women’s hockey.
This room is eerily empty. I sit on a wooden bench, a solitary grey practice jersey hangs behind me. It has the Team Canada hockey logo on the front. I’ve never earned the right to wear a National Team jersey before; the one I wore for successive school pictures doesn’t count. I leave it on its hanger, not daring to move the sacred object until I need it.
Ripping the luggage tag off the straps, I lob them into the garbage at the centre of the room. I unzip my bag and occupy myself by pulling out various pieces of armour needed for practice that starts in approximately 45 minutes. I’m not used to having this much space or time.
Never at a practice this early, I poke my head out of the dressing room, but there’s no one in sight. The actual women’s National Team dressing room is at the end of the hall, but I see no movement. I feel like I’m the only one at the rink today. Heading back into my room, and with nothing else left to do, I start to dress.
1989: Trailblazer — My Life on Boys’ Teams
The St. Vital Victorias Bantam AA boys’ room is loud with chatter, jammed with my 13-year-old male teammates at various stages of gearing up. Playing hockey, I’ve never known anything but a room full of boys. I’m always the only girl.
The boys who arrive after me run to the bathroom to put on their under-gear clothes. There’s nowhere private for me to change so I cleverly have the garments I will wear to play hockey on beneath my street clothes.
The room is almost full, but my bag and I squeeze in next to Jamie Bettens, one of the few guys I hang out with outside the rink. He’s always been my champion, and his mom is one of my biggest fans.
I’ve been teammates with many of these guys since we were little, so this isn’t embarrassing for me. What is routine for me was probably awkward for the new guys for the first few weeks of the season but now it’s normal. I hunch towards the wall trying to conceal my sports bra from my team, and quickly change my t-shirt.
I begin to suit up amid the chaos. My hand digs through my bag for my garter belt; I stand and slide it loosely around my hips. I pull up my red, black, and white wool hockey socks and sit ba