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As premier talent leaves, top end talent arrives for Lakers Women

'It’s not going to be easy to replace them all right away, but we have a great group of players coming in over the next couple of years'
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Lakers head coach Darren Turcotte will lose some key pieces but he is still excited about what the future holds for his new recruits. FIle photo by Chris Dawson/BayToday.

It’s never easy for any hockey team to lose some of its top, long-time players. The Nipissing Lakers women’s hockey team, is losing a group of eight players that combined for 299 points in 622 games played between the start of the 2015 season and the end of last year. This group of eight have their names all over the franchise record books. Five of them are ranked one through five in scoring in franchise history. It’s a group that Head Coach Darren Turcotte speaks fondly of.

“We felt that when this group came in five years ago, that was probably at the time our best recruiting class,” says Turcotte.

“Just seeing them go through the whole program and seeing where they came from and what they were able to accomplish, it definitely was the most successful recruiting class we had.”

Kaley Tienhaara, Sam Strassburger, Bronwyn Bolduc, Zosia Davis, Jade Gauthier, Kailtyn McManus, Taylor McManus and Melissa Tolton are all leaving the program after being key pieces that put Nipissing on the University Sports map when it comes to womens hockey.

“They come in and we get to keep players of that calibre for four or sometimes five years and it’s great to see them grow as players and grow as people.”

While they were never able to capture the championship, they produced many memorable moments for the franchise. They went to the McCaw Cup finals in 2017. Took Western to a Game three "winner take all" triple-overtime contest in the semi-finals in 2016 and captured multiple all-star and top player of the year awards. Not to mention they were the ones to really establish the benchmarks for the teams record books.

All of that is in the past now though, as the seventh season for the Lakers is drawing closer and closer and Turcotte says they are anticipating what kind of an impact the next group of players can make.

“It’s not going to be easy to replace them all right away, but we have a great group of players coming in over the next couple of years.”

The newest additions this year are Allison Hayhurst, Maggie McKee, Victoria Quance, Malory Dominico, Madison Laberge, Ashley Taciuk and Melanie Young. If the previous group of eight set the benchmarks, this may be a group that rewrites them.

“This is our best-recruiting class,” Turcotte says.

“It is a big class but at the same time we have some top-end talent coming in that have proven themselves successfully in junior hockey down south or with Team Ontario’s program or with other provincial teams.”

Hayhurst comes from outside of Ontario. The 18-year-old defender from Wapella, Saskatchewan has played for that provinces U18 team and is a Canada U18 invitee. Another player for the blue line is Madison Laberge from Hanmer. She was part of the Gold Medal winning provincial team in 2017.

Up front, the Lakers are adding London, Ontario native Maggie McKee who led the Provincial Women’s Hockey League in scoring in 2017-18. Also hailing from the second most famous city named London is Victoria Quance, a teammate of McKee and the number one ranked Midget player.

Continuing with the theme of top players, Ashley Taciuk was the leading scorer of her hometown Oakville Hornets.

Melanie Young, a former midget AA Ice Boltz forward, comes in having spent last year with the Kingston Ice Wolves and won a silver medal with Team Ontario South at the 2018 NAHC. 

Teagan Feltz, another Ice Boltz product, who played in the PWHL last season with the Barrie Sharks, was their top scorer.  She is expected to add some grit and scoring into the Lakers lineup. 

And another hometown product Malory Dominico who is the younger sister of current Lakers forward Maria Dominico. Malory has also been invited to the Team Canada U18 camp.

Both Maria and Malory are graduates of the North Bay Ice Boltz program and Turcotte says it’s important for a community to see hometown players succeeding through the local ranks. He says, “we love recruiting locally, we have had a lot of success with local players. A lot of the Ice Boltz have come through our program. We like to give them the opportunity and if they choose to stay at home, then we love to have them.”

To this point, nothing seems set in stone when it comes to the makeup of next year’s team. The outgoing players played big minutes and were counted on during important moments. Turcotte says opportunity awaits for both newcomers and returning players, “there are lots of things we want to look at over the first month of the season and we want to see how those 

new players are going to step in and how are our returning players going to respond to the challenge of stepping into certain positions.”

“We put a lot of emphasis into our summer training program and that’s going to be a big key for a lot of our players.”

Repeating success year to year is never easy, and replacing the graduating group of eight may be the toughest challenge this Lakers staff has faced in its seven-year history, but Turcotte plans on having these players ready to go from the point of puck drop. And while there are big skates to fill for the upcoming season, Turcotte expects the transition period to be a smooth one for the 2019-20 Lakers.

“We feel they are going to be able to step in and maybe not replace (the graduating players) right away but we know we can count on our returning players to step it up also,” he says.

Turcotte also bolstered his depth between the pipes as Maggie Baxter, from Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia and Chantelle Sandquist from Red Deer, Alberta, add some depth to the position.  
 


Matt Sookram

About the Author: Matt Sookram

Matthew Sookram is a Canadore College graduate. He has lived and worked in North Bay since 2009 covering different beats; everything from City Council to North Bay Battalion.
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