Jan. 23, 2023 — An attention-grabbing (forty ninth) parallel
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This previous week noticed a altering of the guard in Canada that was simply as important because the retirement of North Carolina discipline hockey legend Karen Shelton.
The College of Victoria, positioned in British Columbia proper on the water throughout the Haro Strait from the State of Washington, has been lucky to have had a extremely profitable discipline hockey group that has received 15 Canada Interuniversity Sport nationwide championships, together with a win in a three-game collection over York in November 2022.
The coach for the final 39 seasons at UVic has been Lynne Beecroft. Her teaching document with the Vikings was 340 wins, 98 defeats, and 89 attracts. Some 40 gamers which have come by way of her group have gone on to characterize Canada on the worldwide degree.
Beecroft’s ultimate season was not solely an undefeated one inside Canada, but it surely was a season that started outdoors of it. The Vikings began the season with friendlies towards Columbia, Yale, and the College of Pennsylvania. The vacationers had a win and two attracts towards their Ivy League opposition.
“I didn’t get into teaching fascinated with what my legacy could be. My hope is that the athletes I’ve coached have come away with, not solely discipline hockey expertise, however life expertise, in order that once they enter the ‘actual’ world a few of the classes I’ve taught will resonate,” Beecroft mentioned in a ready assertion. “Our athletes go on to be fairly profitable, and if they will take these classes and apply them to their careers and even their relationships, which means extra to me than anything.”
Beecroft’s transition from worldwide participant to varsity coach occurred in an amazingly related vogue. Beecroft amassed round 60 caps for the Crimson and White, together with 4 World Cups and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was across the time she was enjoying for Workforce Canada in Los Angeles that she received the inkling to educate on the College of Victoria.
The successes and a focus to element between the Victoria and North Carolina packages are a lot the identical. These are groups that worth the ball and take their probabilities. The one distinction is that Victoria solely has a seven-game common season due to the variety of Canadian universities which have dropped the game within the final quarter-century.
That’s type of a disgrace, given the truth that Canada has discovered a components for fulfillment on the worldwide degree, being the present silver medalists from the Pan American Video games.
Beecroft’s long-time assistant coach, Krista Thompson will take over this fall, and he or she could have rather a lot to reside as much as.
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