Girls-only camp to run at Northern Hockey Academy and Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex from June 28 to 31
While girls across Greater Sudbury have marked their calendars in anticipation of Tessa Bonhomme’s annual summer hockey camp, anticipation has also continued to build for members of a star-studded roster of guest coaches.
Bonhomme, the Sudbury native and 2010 Olympic goal medallist who has since found success as a broadcaster and podcaster, will team up with Northern Hockey Academy for the third straight year to host four days of skills and conditioning instruction, as well as photo and autograph opportunities with Bonhomme and her guests, from June 28 to 31.
Confirmed guests for this year’s camp include Sophie Jaques, back-to-back winner of the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Walter Cup championship with Minnesota and a recent signee with Vancouver’s expansion franchise; Brianne Jenner, tournament MVP of the 2022 Olympics, a four-time world champion and current captain of Ottawa’s PWHL club; and Kori Cheverie, a former U Sports and professional player who now serves as head coach of the Montreal PWHL team.
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Bonhomme is working to secure a few more guests, with names to be confirmed in the coming days.
“It has been kind of fun, year after year, having players be excited to come on back and sometimes, even reach out to me before I can reach out to them,” Bonhomme told The Sudbury Star. “Some years, it doesn’t necessarily work out, like Jamie Lee Rattray, she just recently had a baby and she was disappointed she couldn’t make it and Erin Ambrose, as well, was a little bit gutted she couldn’t make it again, but they always let me know not to forget about them next year.
“It’s nice to see people want to come north and help spread the love of hockey.”
Bonhomme and NHA will once again host two camps simultaneously, including a full-day camp for 11- to 18-year-old girls playing at the A and AA levels, held at the academy’s facility on Kelly Lake Road, as well as a two-hour mini-camp for seven- to 16-year-old girls of all skill levels, to run at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
While Sudbury has long been an exporter of hockey talent in the girls game, with Olympic champions Bonhomme and Rebecca Johnston joining a list of NCAA and U Sports players who have come out of the city, youngsters previously had to travel to learn from some of the standouts who now gather in the Nickel City for the event.
“Honestly, I just wanted to bring a hockey world that sometimes feels so out of touch in Northern Ontario to Northern Ontario, to these ladies,” Bonhomme explained. “I feel like, having lived in Toronto for some time now and seeing how accessible all these players are on a regular basis to young female athletes around here, it almost makes me feel bad that this isn’t commonplace for a Northern Ontario kid. I hope, one, it makes the kids feel special and like we’re thinking of them and want the best for them, but two, just to create relationships with these world-class athletes and hockey players.”
It has been a pleasure, she said, to watch the camp attendees get to know the guest coaches on a personal level, to discover they often come from similar backgrounds and have followed similar paths through the hockey ranks.
“These are just regular people, too, who grew up in small towns like you and played in rinks and put in the work, just like these kids,” Bonhomme added. “I think that’s the one thing that sticks out to me, year after year, is specific players who did come back to the camp already had that hockey community feel with some of, quite frankly, these superstars who are visiting the camp. They’ve already got a rapport and they’ve already got jokes from the year prior. It’s nice to see it be so casual, as opposed to the way I was as a kid, which was shy and not really making eye contact, because I couldn’t believe Geraldine Heaney was standing in front of me.”
And while their regular coaches offer good advice, a similar message may carry more weight when it comes from an all-world player with a packed trophy case.
“Once these ladies verbalize something or ask the players to do it, everyone is standing at attention and every word is being digested,” Bonhomme said. “It’s really neat to see how much these players actually want to learn and how much they’re absorbing. They’re like sponges.
“The best part is the laughs — that’s what it’s all about, when you see the kids having so much fun playing the sport you had so much fun playing and sharing in the love of the game.”
She hopes that each young player leaves the camp with a belief that everything the likes of Bonhomme, Johnston, Jenner or Jaques has done is truly attainable.
“It’s there for them,” Bonhomme said. “It’s there for the taking.”
For more information on the camp or to register, visit northernhockeyacademy.ca/camps.
bleeson@postmedia.com
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