Young Terrace hockey player Myah Bowal won provincials in the female Major Midget Hockey League for the second year in a row with the Northern Capitals team from Prince George.
Last weekend, they took on the Alberta major midget champions in Prince George, fighting to represent the pacific region at Hockey Canada midget nationals – competing for the 2016 ESSO Cup in Saskatchewan on April 19-25.
“Myah is very dedicated to progress… her strengths are definitely her stick handling and work ethic… she sees the ice really well,” said Capitals coach Mario Desjardins.
The team won first place with a 6-0 record in the prestigious Mac tournament in Calgary over Christmas, and Desjardins said Myah was one of the lead scorers.
“She definitely turned some heads,” he said, adding that universities are already interested in recruiting her.
In their regular season, Northern Capitals (previously Northern Cougars) finished second to Vancouver Comets with 21 wins compared to Vancouver’s 23.
They upset Vancouver in the final championship to earn the gold title in Female Midget AAA.
Myah started playing hockey at age six and grew up in Terrace Minor Hockey. At age 11-12, she played underage in bantam hockey (ages 13-14) for the boys rep team, who didn’t make provincials.
That same year (2012), she was invited to join Terrace’s first competitive female rep team (bantams) for their provincials, where they won silver.
The following two years she played on the Terrace female bantam rep team, underage for the first year, winning gold with them in 2013, and bronze in 2014.
Last year at age 14, Myah moved to Richmond to play in her age group, as the Terrace female bantams folded. She played with the Richmond Ravens in bantam rep, and won gold. A week later she was called up to play in Prince George for the Northern Cougars (now Capitals) in the Major Midget League and won gold with the team in provincials.
This year she continues playing major midget in Prince George with the Capitals.
“I’ve always loved hockey, since I was little,” Myah said. “It was a big opportunity, so I decided to try out with the team (Northern Capitals)… It’s been going really good. Everybody has been playing hard and our coach is amazing – Mario Desjardins, who is also from Terrace.”
Myah said that she has nice team mates, who are all friendly and including.
“The community there is really good and supportive,” she said. Despite being in grade 10, Myah is already looking to the future and aiming for scholarships.
“I want to go to university and play hockey. That’s my main goal right now,” she said, adding that though she has time to decide, she is already talking to quite a few schools.
“I want to go to an ivy league school, but just a regular one would be fine too,” she said.
The main thing is that she wants to play NCAA hockey, division one.
Closer on the horizon, and aside from possible nationals at the end of the month, Myah is aiming for a place on the provincial U18 development hockey team.
She played U16 last year and was invited to tryout for U18, despite being age 15, but didn’t quite make it.
“Hopefully this year. It’s her goal,” said her mom Shammi Bowal.
