And with that, the business of the Yellowknife Women’s Hockey League is complete for 2022-23.
The Yk Robins, as they’re nicknamed, closed out their campaign at the Yk Community Arena last weekend with a 4-on-4 tournament. And it was a tournament which was very much up in the air due to the city strike earlier this year.
But Karen Brown, the league’s president, said getting out and finishing off on a positive note was the goal.
“We were grateful that the city went back to work and we were able to secure ice time for the tournament,” she said. “We’re very fortunate to have had one last time to play together.”
There were enough players to put together four teams — each squad had an average of nine skaters with one goaltender. The rules were modified a bit, such as all penalties called by the officials resulted in a penalty shot for the non-offending team. Any game which ended tied after regulation time went to a shootout to determine the winner and that’s how the final ended up.
“That shootout rule proved to be really intense,” said Brown. “My team ended up losing, unfortunately, but it was still super exciting and everyone had a great time.”
As for the team names, they were made up by the tournament organizers and they decided to go with a Harry Potter theme.
“A couple of ladies stepped up to help get it organized and they had to come up with team names as part of it,” said Brown. “Having the Harry Potter names was very fitting.”
The weekend also included the awarding of the Sprout Award, named in honour of the late Robin Mercer-Sproule. The award is given to a player who, like Mercer-Sproule, encourages the development of women’s hockey through commitment, tenacity, perseverance and sportsmanship. This year’s winner was Ali Kincaid. That was part of the award ceremony at the Raven Pub on April 29, where several other team awards were given out.
With this season now over, the league will take a break until August. That’s when the annual general meeting will take place with registration set to begin around mid-September, said Brown.
“We’ll hopefully be back out on the ice around early to mid-October,” she said.