“Right now, everything is clicking.”
That’s an easy way to sum up the first half of the Nipissing Lakers Women’s Hockey Teams’ season so far. They head into the break on a 12-game winning streak and a 14-1-0-0 record with 40 points through 15 games played.
“Our season is going really well for the first half, and I think that we have enough grit and talent on our team to keep it going and continue to be one of the top-ranked teams in the country and in Ontario,” says veteran forward and North Bay native Malory Dominico.
The team is now ranked 2nd in the U Sports Women’s hockey rankings and Dominico, just as she’s done her entire tenure in a Lakers uniform, is helping set the pace for the season.
With six goals and four assists, Dominico is one of seven players on the team who is already at double digits in points at the halfway point of the season. But it’s nothing new to Dominico who has been an offensive threat since breaking into the league in the 2019-20 season. In her freshman year, she put up 16 points in 24 games, with 11 of those being goals, and that was just a sign of things to come. After the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020-21 season Dominico came back scoring seven goals in a shortened 14-game season in 2021-22. That was followed by a tremendous 15 goals and a 26-point season last year in 2022-23, both of which tied her sister Maria Dominico’s single-season franchise records in both categories.
The elder Dominico graduated last year but younger sister Malory says Maria is still a big part of her everyday life at the rink.
“It's definitely hard for me no longer having Maria in the locker room. I am my sister's biggest fan, and she was always a role model of mine. She does watch every single game, whether it's in person or she's streaming it, and I always have an after-game talk with her, and she still is motivating me as much as she can,” says Dominico who is also six goals shy of breaking her older sisters career franchise record for goals. Maria wrapped up her career scoring 44 goals in 101 games while Malor is sitting at 39 in her career through 79 games, and there is potential for her to return again next season.
While this is her fifth year at Nipissing University, the lost season due to the COVID-19 pandemic allows Dominico to be eligible for one more OUA season next year, and the Business Major says she is contemplating another year with the Lakers. It’s certainly something the team would not be opposed to as they would be bringing back a player who has a multitude of experience under her belt as during her tenure with the team, the Lakers have been to two McCaw Cup finals and two U-Sports championships. Dominico says despite playing on those big stages, there is still a lot left to be desired.
“I think getting silver twice hurts a little bit and we are still looking for some redemption,” she says alluding to the losses to the Brock Badgers and the Toronto Varsity Blues in the McCaw Cup finals in back-to-back years and also getting to the Gold Medal Game at the U-Sports championships in 2022, falling to Concordia in that matchup. The contingent of returning players from those two teams makes up a strong core of this year's squad.
“Our whole focus is going for gold this year,” says Dominico. “We lost about four players from last year, so most of our returners have been through this process and we’re lucky because it means we’re keeping a lot of those linemates together, which helps with the team chemistry because you’ve played so well together the past few years. We really click with each other and we know where everyone is going to be on the ice, which really helps us be successful”
Dominico adds the newcomers are fitting in nicely as well.
“We have a locker room full of great leaders for the Freshmen players to look up to. We have a really good core group of girls that we all want to get the job done.”
But just because you were successful one year, doesn’t mean you can’t keep building and developing the type of player you are and Dominico says she’s put in the work to be more of a complete player this year.
“I’ve tried to become more of a 200-foot player this year. I haven't put up as many points as I did in the first half of last season, but I'm trying to do other things on the ice to make sure that I'm making an impact instead of just getting points. I worked hard in the summer for that and I like the results so far” says Dominico.
Outside of the impressive streak the Lakers have been on, one of the early season highlights was a game at home that featured over 4200 fans in attendance at Memorial Gardens. All of the Jr. Lakers girls hockey teams players and families were in attendance as well as some teams who were from out of town, playing in a tournament in North Bay that weekend. Dominico says it was a thrill to perform in front of a crowd of that size.
“I think we actually had more fans at the Jr. Lakers game than we did at the U-Sports Championships and it's kind of just crazy to see how many girls are playing minor girls hockey and how successful it's been,” she says. “It was pretty crazy to see how many girls were here for that game to support us.”
With an unprecedented first half behind them, Dominico says they are already looking at what they can do to continue to improve in the second half in the New Year.
“We have games where we do need to put more of an effort in. Some games have been close when they shouldn't be, and we just need to focus on giving that 100% for the full 60-minute game, for all three periods,” says Dominico.
The Lakers are back in action on January 5th when they host Wilfred Laurier at Memorial Gardens for a 5 pm puck drop.
