TOP YOUNG FEMALE PLAYERS TO CHASE INAUGURAL GOLD MEDAL
AT 2013 FEMALE WORLD SPORT SCHOOL CHALLENGE

Once again, Winnipeg, Man., will welcome a Hockey Canada event.

Top female hockey teams from sport schools across the country will take to the ice later this month to chase the first-ever gold medal at the Female World Sport School Challenge.

All the exciting action takes place Feb. 21-24 at the MTS Iceplex, a Hockey Canada Centre of Excellence designated facility.

The 2013 Female World Sport School Challenge is an eight-team tournament that will feature two Winnipeg sport school teams, the St. Mary’s Academy Flames and Shaftsbury School Titans. They will be joined by the Banff Hockey Academy and Edge School of Excellence, both from Alberta; Fort Frances High School Muskie Girls Hockey out of Ontario; Okanagan Hockey Academy and the Pursuit of Excellence, both from British Columbia, and Rothesay Netherwood School of New Brunswick.

Tickets to the 2013 Female World Sport School Challenge are available at the Jets Gear store in the MTS Iceplex and at St. Mary’s Academy. Tournament passes are $25 and individual game tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students.

A special feature of this year’s tournament is a banquet featuring keynote speaker, National Women’s Team alumna Jennifer Botterill, who won three gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games and five world championship gold medals over the course of her 14-year career wearing the Hockey Canada jersey.

This special event with proud Winnipeg native Botterill is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 22 at the Victoria Inn on Wellington Avenue in Winnipeg, with the reception starting at 6 p.m. CT and dinner set for 7 p.m. MT. Tickets are $50 per person and are available at the MTS Iceplex, or by contacting Kathy Bumstead at 204-926-5866 or kbumstead@nhsc.mb.ca, or Tim Rafter at 204-926-5882 or trafter@truenorth.mb.ca. Please visit www.HockeyCanada.ca/FWSSC for more information on the 2013 Female World Sport School Challenge.

The St. Mary’s Academy Flames Prep Team is proud to be the host school for this event.

HOCKEY CANADA SPORT SCHOOLS
The past several years have seen a new trend begin to take shape within the hockey structure in Canada. Sport schools, as they are now known, were started in Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba, as well as several other provinces, to help fill a void that some people felt existed in the hockey structure. These are not “residential schools,” but rather they attempt to re-align and build new partnerships and relationships with the Hockey structure and the educational system.

As this appeared to be a growing trend, Hockey Canada felt it was wise to create and develop partnerships that would see these groups operate within the Hockey Canada family, as opposed to operating outside of the structure, so that sport school programs can complement as opposed to compete with its structures and programs.

Hockey Canada took the initiative and began a dialogue between all the affected parties, from minor hockey associations, to branch personnel, to the operators of sport school programs. Hockey Canada’s objective is to facilitate the integration of school-based hockey programs with the Hockey Canada programming model.