Bowdoin women?s ice hockey coach Stacy Wilson will be thinking about two teams come winter.
From September 17-21, 41 of the top female hockey players in Canada met in Calgary for the first round of the selection process for the national team, accompanied by Wilson. At the selection camp, Wilson coached one of two teams alongside one of the Team Canada coaches. Wilson said she gave input about her players through evaluation forms.
The selection process for potential national team members begins when the hockey players are teenagers. Those in charge of selection track promising players through their careers and eventually invite them to selection camp, Wilson said.
"There will be four more evaluations and competitive events before the final group is selected for Olympic centralization. During centralization, final selections will be made for the 2010 Olympics," she said.
Wilson said the selection camp helped to determine which athletes would work toward the 2009 World Women's Hockey Championship as well as Olympic centralization in February 2009.
Prior to her work this September, Wilson was involved in the development of Team Canada.
"I coached the Under-22 Canadian National Team development camp in the summer of 2007 and was asked back again this past summer," she said.
Wilson was invited to take part in the next round of selection, which will be held this month, but declined because of her pre-existing commitments at Bowdoin. She said her role has ended for the time being.
Sophomore Michaela Calnan, who plays on the Bowdoin Women's Hockey Team, said Wilson announced to the team that she would be working with Team Canada at one of the team's first meetings of the year.
"Coach was modest about how impressive this position is and joked about how she would rather stay here at Bowdoin with her golf team instead of going," she said. "She realized how beneficial her experience at the national camp would be to our team because she would be exposed to different styles of play and systems that we could potentially integrate into our team's game, which is exciting to think about."
Growing up, Wilson played boys' minor league hockey before starting a women's hockey team at Acadia University, where she went to college. Wilson said the team she formed was a club team, as female varsity hockey at the university level did not exist at the time.
After graduation, Wilson played with Team New Brunswick, making it to several national championships. Wilson also played for Team Canada from 1990 until 1998, and is currently enrolled in the Canadian High Performance Coaching Certification Program.
Bowdoin's athletic culture is one that encourages personal growth and development, Wilson said.
"I know that the players are training and working hard to be the best they can be, and they are always encouraging each other to strive to be better than they were yesterday," she said. "This team culture applies to the coaches as well, thus I know they were happy when this professional development opportunity was presented to me, knowing that it will help all of us to improve and have a successful season."
"Being around high performance players and coaches is always a great learning experience," she said. "I look forward to applying certain aspects of what I learned with our team this year during practice, in games, as well as off the ice."