Women’s Showcase Series to mark Vancouver Games 10-year anniversary

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Vancouver 2010 Games, Canada will be hosting the USA for a three-game women’s Para Ice Hockey series this week at the Richmond Olympic Oval.

The Women’s Para Ice Hockey Showcase Series is part of a larger project funded partially by the Hockey Canada Foundation called ‘The TrailblazeHERs Project – Growing Female Para Hockey.’

Canada and USA will each hold training sessions and opportunities to engage with the local public, including female-only mentorship sessions, ahead of the series. The three games will take place on 21 February at 11:00 PT, 22 February at 15:00 PT and 23 February at 10:45 PT.

All games will be streamed live on Oval TV at www.RichmondOval.ca.

Canada’s squad is stacked full of young talent, including three 19-year-olds in Camille Lalonde, Rebecca Sharp and Mackenzie Spong, yet all but one player on the team has international experience.

Heading back to the Vancouver arena as an assistant coach for the team will be Derek Whitson, who played on Canada’s men’s Para ice hockey team at the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics when he was 19.

The US women’s team is in its second season under full governance of USA Hockey and features 15 returning players from last season, including team captain Erica Mitchell.

Last February, Canada took two of three games from the USA in their three-games series in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Earlier this month, World Para Ice Hockey announced it is setting a target to conduct an inaugural Women’s World Championships in October 2021, with the ultimate goal of adding women’s Para Ice Hockey to the Paralympic Games programme. This Canada-USA series is another step of many in the right direction to expand the women’s game.