Key takeaways:
- Squads from St. John’s province, St-Pierre-Miquelon, come together for a weekend of fun.
- Players from St-Pierre-Miquelon and the St. John’s province come together for a photo after a match on Saturday morning at Capital Hyundai Arena.
This weekend, a sense of fun was authentic at a small rink in St. John’s on Saturday, where many women came together for the first big hockey match to involve squads from “overseas” in almost two years.
Volunteers drew together the inaugural Skoden Hockey Club Classic, getting together more than 100 female hockey players from St. John’s province with 21 of their long-distance partners from St-Pierre-Miquelon — the French archipelago off Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula.
A language wall wasn’t sufficient to keep them from having fun.
“This year, we are fortunate because we have two squads from St-Pierre here,” said Malika Plaa, skipper of one of the French units. “We missed [being here]. We would like to have fun with all the individuals here.”
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Despite being only a 90-minute ferry lift from the island of Newfoundland, citizens of St-Pierre-Miquelon were cut off during the outbreak due to border constraints that lasted till late last summer.
The women’s hockey squad made journeys to St. John’s for tournaments in 2019 and 2020 but could not visit again till this weekend.
Plaa expects to conduct a similar tournament in St-Pierre-Miquelon every two years, hosting squads from St. John’s on their little slice of Europe on this flank of the Atlantic.
All years, all abilities
There wasn’t just a variety of languages on the ice over the weekend but also a mixture of ages and skill levels. Players varied from 13 to 70 years old, and their range in experience was almost as wide. The organizers planned to assure everyone had an equal chance to play and enjoy themselves.
Source – cbc.ca
