Jaelei Meyer of Carlyle has been playing hockey all of her life. Currently she is a grade 12 student at Notre Dame, where she is a player for the female hockey team there. Being very athletic she even picked up rugby last year during the off season.
Meyer has been going to practices with the Notre Dame Hounds for the past two months, but has also been training with Team Saskatchewan as she is one of the chosen few picked to represent the province.
The U18 team is made up of 20 individuals from across the province, the best female players Saskatchewan has to offer. Between Nov. 7 and Nov. 11 the team will travel to Dawson Creek, B.C. in order to compete in the U18 National Women's Hockey Championship.
Filling the Team Saskatchewan roster was a long process, which began in February. Girls tried out first for their zones and the SaskFirst Tournament was held to scout girls for Team Sask. The scouts chose 46 girls out of 160 to attend a summer camp.
Following the summer camp half of the girls were sent home. From here the remaining 24 attended the Mandi Schwartz Challenge. Between Sept. 20 and Sept. 23 each girl took part in a couple of games and practices, so the final roster of 20 girls could be decided on.
"They found their top 24 and then they had to cut four girls to make the final roster. On Oct. 6 the team will play an exhibition game in Saskatoon," Meyer explained.
Meyer was able to impress each of the scouts and will play defence for Team Sask in the upcoming tournament at the En Cana Events Centre.
"The top players from the province will go there to play in B.C., in Dawson Creek. Our first game is against B.C. so it's going to be a pretty exciting game with the crowd that will be there," Meyer stated.
Team Saskatchewan's pool consists of Ontario Red (the defending gold medalist), Team Atlantic, and Team B.C. The other pool holds Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario Blue.
The B.C. versus Saskatchewan game will be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 7. Anyone hoping to take in some action can do so through watching www.hockeycanada.fasthockey.com. All preliminary games, semi-final games, as well as the bronze medal game will be aired through this means while the gold medal game will be aired on TSN.
At the U18 Naionals there will also be a scout present, Melody Davidson, who will be looking for players to ice a 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women's World Champions team. This tournament will be held in Finland at the beginning of next year.
Meyer, however, is focused on simply playing her game. She hopes to create interest from schools across Canada and the United States in order to play for a university team. As a senior player with the Hounds she is also focused on her leadership role with the younger players.
"This year as one of the graduating players I'm stepping up to be a leader. Also university wise after this weekend [Thanksgiving weekend] hopefully there'll be more interest from schools and I'll be able to make a decision concerning my future soon," Meyer explained as she was travelling to Minnesota for the Hounds first league game with her team.
All the best is wished for the great athlete who is hoping to graduate with an offer to play on both a hockey and rugby team in post-secondary schooling for the 2013-2014 season.
