My Name is Bailee Bourassa from Weyburn and I play for the Weyburn Gold Wings. This is my fourth year on the team and this year I have been chosen as the team captain.
This is a special year for the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey league as we celebrate our 10th anniversary as a league. We have 17 girls on the team this year, we have 10 returning players and seven rookies. Macy Liebreich (Radville), Sarah Hornoi (Pilot Butte), Bailee Bourassa (Weyburn), Ashten Sinclair (Limerick), Payton Mabee (Weyburn), McKenzie Cherpin (Radville), Katelyn Blair (Drake), Brooklyn Chicoine (Storthoaks), Janissa Cooley (Oxbow), Elise Endicott (White City), Shelby Kirkpatrick (Regina), Michaella Matthies (Estevan), Madison Solie (Sedley), Jensen Hammer (Moose Jaw), Brooke Mead (Regina), Shakara Chutskoff (Grenfell), and Chantal Burke (Saskatoon) make up our 2015-2016 roster.
We have been spending the last month practicing for games, playing exhibition games to get to know each other’s style and learn to play together with each other as well as working with our sports psychologist to build a strong team bond and develop a strong team work ethic. We attended an exhibition tournament in Swift Current in early September and played really well against very strong teams.
Last weekend, October 3 and 4, we kicked off our regular season in Prince Albert against the Prince Albert Bears. This was a very exciting time for both rookie and veteran Gold Wings. The girls were pumped to finally start the regular season after a busy exhibition season. Our first period in Price Albert was a little slow but after that we played very well.
I think that maybe some of the girls were nervous to play their first game in the league but once that first period was over we came together as a team and played better. On October 3 we defeated the Bears 3-2 and October 4 we had another close game but lost 2-1. Overall it was a successful weekend that we have learnt lots from. We look forward to playing the Bears again later in the season at Crescent Point Place.
Another exciting announcement for the GoldWings, is that our home-opener is this Saturday November 10 against the defending league champs, the Saskatoon Stars. We are excited and are anticipating the strong competition that the Stars will bring to the ice this weekend. We will be spending this week working hard at practice to prepare for these two games. Puck drop for this game is at 7:30 p.m.
We also play a second game on Sunday, October 11 at 2 p.m.
This year will be a very exciting year for the Gold Wings, as we have been awarded the 2016 Esso Cup National Championship. The Esso Cup will run from April 17-23, 2016. The GoldWings are very excited that this year’s team will be fortunate enough to be a part of this great event once again. This weekend at our home opening games will be our Esso Cup kick-off. At these games tickets for the Esso Cup will be available for purchase and a volunteer sign up list will be open for people to sign up to volunteer at the Esso Cup in April 2016.
Our team will be dropping off posters at businesses this week to begin promoting the Esso Cup in our community and will be giving businesses two free tickets to attend the games this weekend. Also, there will be a “get your picture taken with the cup” booth set up for after the game on Saturday night so we encourage everyone to bring your camera and come out to have your picture taken with a GoldWing and the Esso Cup.
We hope to see lots of people from the community come out and support us at our opening weekend!
