A key trio of players from Kelowna will be back with Canada’s national women’s field hockey team for the upcoming season.
Abigail Raye, Danielle Hennig and Natalie Sourisseau were among 12 players named this week to the national team’s roster for the 2016 competition period.
Raye, 24, has the second most international caps with the Canadian program among active players with 139.
Hennig, 24, has 103 caps, while Sourisseau, 22, has played in 82 international matches.
All KSS grads, the three players were part of Canada’s bronze medal effort at the Pan American Games this summer in Toronto.
It was the best international showing for the women’s team since 1999.
With the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio out of reach for Canada, the national program’s focus in the coming years will be the World Cup in 2018 and qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Hennig, who earned her first cap with Canada in 2010, is excited to be part of the next phase of development for the national women’s program.
Still a relatively young team, the Canadians have made major strides on the international stage the last two years—now ranked 19th in the world—with more progress expected in the future.
“It’s pretty cool to be part of a young program on the rise and our team is already achieving things we haven’t been in decades (Pan Am medal),” said Hennig, “but we still have so much room to grow individually and as a collective.
“To be a part of that is pretty special and I’d like to hope that I can be one of the key players that will help get Canada back to the Olympics in 2020 and be part of a new chapter in Canadian field hockey.”
Meanwhile, Abigail Raye was one of three Canadian women named this fall to the Pan American Elite team for women.
Other Canadians named among the 16 players were Raye’s national teammates, Brienne Stairs and Karli Johansen.
Since 2007, Pan American Elite Teams have been named every two years to recognize the top players in the Pan American competitions.
