MANITOBA WOMEN’S JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
Esquivel, Anderson
Win MWJHL’s
Major Awards
Another season wrapped up for the Manitoba
Women’s Junior Hockey League last month.
With the Silvertips grabbing the Provincial
Championship Trophy, the MWJHL coaches named
Natasha Esquivel the league’s MVP while first-year
star Hope Anderson picked up the Top Forward
Award and the Scoring Title. For President Kirk
Kuppers, the MWJHL just keeps getting better
and better.
By Scott Taylor
Photos by James Carey Lauder, Lynda Wray
and Tannis Esquivel
N
atasha Esquivel’s greatest hockey moment was actually
about a week long.
“Yeah, my greatest memory in hockey was back in Grade
12 when I was playing for the St. Vital Vics and playing for the Da-
kota Lancers,” said Esquivel, a 21-year-old star with the Western
Predators of the Manitoba Women’s Junior Hockey League.
“One of the girls I had played against for many years growing up,
and actually played with her for three years on the Preds, I hap-
pened to be playing against her in both the Vics and the Lancers.
We ended up beating her team in the high school final and three
days later beat her with the Vics. I had two championships and a
provincial handball championship under my belt within two weeks.
I would say that was my highest point as an athlete. It was pretty
surreal.”
In the high school final, Esquivel tallied three goals as her Dakota
Lancers beat the Louis Riel Voyageurs 4-1 to claim the title. It was a
great moment for a great player.
However, this year, she might have found herself having a new
“greatest moment” in the game. After finishing fourth in MWJHL
scoring during the regular season and third in the playoffs, she was
named the league’s Most Valuable Player.
“That’s an honor,” she said. “I don’t think I was expecting it be-
cause there are lot girls in this league that are tough to beat and
they put up a lot of points. But hearing it from coaches and then
actually getting the award, it’s quite an honor.”
108 GAME ON
2017 CHAMPIONS EDITION
This year’s annual MWJHL Awards Dinner was a big night for many
of the players in the province’s only junior women’s hockey league.
However, it was an exceptional night for Esquivel and Hope Ander-
son, the first-year star of the league champion Silvertips.
Anderson won the league scoring title with 18 goals and 44 points
in 32 games. She won the regular season scoring title with 14 goals
and 27 points in 24 games and won the playoff scoring title with
four goals and 17 points in eight post-season games.
Anderson, an athletic therapy student at the University of Mani-
toba, was also named the MWJHL’s Top Forward and earned an An-
thony McLaughlin Memorial Bursary.
Not bad for an undersized 19-year-old Double A player from War-
ren, Man.
“I started playing hockey because both my brothers played and
they kind of got me into it,” said Anderson, who also works part-time
as a front desk clerk at the Sheraton on Pembina Highway. “I started
playing in Warren and I started going to the rink when I was about