It was an opportunity three Williams Lake hockey players won’t be forgetting any time soon.
Brooke Call, Brette Kerley and Pyper Alexander played for the Seattle Wild at the Women’s Beantown Classic Female High Performance Tournament in Boston, Mass. the last weekend in July.
“It’s the biggest female hockey tournament in North America,” Brooke said. “It’s highly skilled.”
Brette said it was “kind of” intimidating playing with girls she’d never played with before, but it was an “all around good experience.”
Since its inception, the tournament has been billed as an entry showcase event providing a platform for girls to play hockey in front of scouts from Canadian and American colleges.
Players from the U.S. states such as Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Arizona, New Jersey and Utah as well as from Canadian cities of Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver and Williams Lake were on the Seattle Wild roster.
Brooke, 17, played forward on the U19 team while Brette, 14 played centre and Pyper, 13, played right wing for the U14 team.
The U19s got put out in the quarter finals, Brooke said.
“We lost in overtime in the quarter finals,” Pyper said, noting they played four games.
There was the option to go to Seattle and practice with the team before the tournament in Boston, however, because of the wildfires it didn’t work out, the players said.
While in Boston, they toured the sites and attended a baseball game at the world-famous Fenway Park.
“It was a beautiful there, really humid, but the weather was gorgeous,” Brooke said. “They have lots of historic stuff there.”
All their players were invited to play with the Seattle team.
“We played them in September 2016,” Brooke explained. “They came up here to play both our younger and our older team and saw us there and later asked us to join them for the tournament.”
Williams Lake had played Seattle Wild in a tournament in Richmond the year before, and Brooke’s dad and head coach, Roy Call got in touch with their head coach and invited them to come to Williams Lake to play some exhibition games first thing in the season, Brooke said.
“In March we went down there and played three games and they are coming up here again the weekend of Sept. 8,” she said.
Brooke said she has been asked to play with the team again next year, which is something she would not be able to do in Canada.
“We are eligible to play there until we are 19 so potentially I could play for them another two years,” she explained.
Pyper and Brette said hopefully they will get to go back as well.
While the midget level will have a rep team in Williams Lake for sure and will be hosting provincials this year, so far for Pyper and Brette who are in bantam nothing has been settled yet as to whether they will have a rep team or if they will move up to play for midget.
On Monday night some players were back on the ice for the first time in Williams Lake.
“It’s just an ice time to get the feel of the ice under your skates again, especially for people that have been off all summer,” Brette said.
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