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and I ended up on Prairie Blaze, playing for Dale Bear. I’ m pretty lucky. I really like Dale as a coach. He’ s really awesome.”
Whitney Is pretty awesome herself She was the leading scorer on her team – and the 11th leading scorer in the league- with nine goals and 17 points in 26 games.
At the MWJHL’ s Windup, she was one of the nominations for the league’ s Rookie of the Year, won the Manitoba Pork Peak Performer of the Year by her team and coaches and was a recipient of a PAL Bursary.
“ I had an awesome year,” she said.“ Winning Peak Performer was pretty surprising and getting a scholarship was really exciting.”
Scott started to play hockey in Thunder Bay when she was six. Her parents got her involved with the Ice Girls program and later, as she improved, they helped her get involved with the Thunder Bay Queens.
“ I got into the Queens program when I was a Peewee,” she said.“ It’ s an awesome
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program. We’ re kind of secluded in Thunder Bay so we always had to travel to get good competition. So we played a lot in the States, but we came to Winnipeg a couple of times and also played in Brandon. I loved the Queens’ program and I played in it until I graduated from high school.”
League President Kirk Kuppers is thrilled with the MWJHL’ s relationship with the Thunder Bay Queens. One of the best players in the league last season – and one of the Stars for the league champion Manitoba Silvertips – was former Queens star Serena Daniels, another university student who got to the MWJHL from the Queens.
“ Whitney is a power forward and is a rising leader with the Blaze,” said Kuppers.“ We love the Thunder Bay connection. In fact, we’ ll have two teams go to this year’ s Caribou Classic in Thunder Bay from Nov. 3-5.”
Prairie Blaze head coach Dale Bear, the man who guided Manitoba’ s provincial aboriginal women’ s to the old medal at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championship in Cowichan
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Valley, B. C., was more than just a little impressed with Scott’ s play last season.
“ That girl is a good player,” said Bear enthusiastically.“ She’ s such a strong skater and is so smart, I can’ t understand why she’ s not playing at the Canadian university level. She listens well, she has an awesome attitude and as a coach, I couldn’ t ask for a better player.
“ And we have something in common. We both started in the league together last year. It was my first year as the coach and her first year as a player and we learned about the league together. She’ s just a great young player from a great family who is trying to balance going to school, working part-time and playing junior hockey, but she’ s always there. She never misses practice and she’ s become a team leader. It’ s hard for a coach to ask for more.”
This year, Bear and his provincial team assistant coach Tina Keeper, will be back for a second year at the helm of the Prairie Blaze while their supporting coaching staff is Samantha Hunt and
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Frank Hunt while Samantha’ s sister – Frank’ s daughter-- Kristen Hunt plays goaltender for the team.
“ Hopefully we’ ll have a very competitive team this year,” said Bear.“ We’ ll definitely be better than we were last year. For me, it’ s no different than playing at the NAHC. Just give me some time. I’ ll get to that championship.”
Scott expects Prairie Blaze to be better this coming season, as well. Regardless, she loved her team last season.
“ Yeah, I loved playing for this team,” said Scott, who stayed in Manitoba this summer to work full-time at Sport Chek at St. Vital Centre.“ The coaches were great and I had a lot of fun.
“ I decided to stay in Winnipeg after I got offered full-time work at Sport Chek,” said Scott, who is studying criminology and native studies.“ Going to school and playing hockey can be expensive, so it was great to have a job this summer. I’ m just so excited to play hockey again. I wasn’ t on the ice very much this summer, I’ m excited to be playing hockey again.” ❍
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