Kirwan (left) and Lind (right) are the two leading scorers so far this season for the Wildcats, racking up 12 and 11 points respectively. They were selected to Team Sask in late September.

 

Three members of the Diamond Energy Female Midget AAA Wildcats are currently representing Team Sask in Quebec City for the National Women's Under-18 Championships, which run from November 1-5.

Forward Taylor Lind, team captain Taylor Kirwan, and head coach Terry Pavely are down east representing the team.

"It's another incredible opportunity, and it's an experience that's exciting to have," said Kirwan, a defenceman from Gull Lake, who says playing in the 2016 edition of the tournament along with a stint on Hockey Canada's Women’s Under-18 Team has prepared her for these sorts of high-level competitions.

"You have to compete hard every game, you can't take a shift off - you can't even take a practice off," said the product of Gull Lake. "It definitely makes me work harder in practices and try to make everyone around me work harder."

The 17-year-old is also serving as the team captain for Team Sask and is joined on the team by her 15-year-old Shaunavon teammate - one of two 15-year-olds to even get an invite to the U18 camp in late September.

"It's a huge honour. It's something I've been looking forward to for my whole life and I've been hoping for - It's one of my biggest goals, and I'm excited," said Lind, who received a U18 camp invite after a strong performance at the U16 Team Sask camp. "It was a really big jump (to the U18 level) - it was good to get some exposure at that (U16) level, and I think it will be great for my development to play in this elite (U18) division."

Though the elder of the two Taylors has served as one of the Wildcats team captains for two seasons, the experience is new to the Shaunavon-born forward.

In her second season in the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League (SFMAAAHL), Lind is sporting an 'A' on her jersey and says she looks forward to bringing her experiences back from the national tournament to help her club team out.

"Just the experience and the chance to wear this jersey is unreal and I just hope that I can teach some of the girls what you need to make that step because I know that we for sure have some talent on this team that in the future could be on Team Sask."

The girls' head coach is no stranger to this tournament either. Last year, Pavely served under head coach Steve Kook, who is also the head coach of the University of Saskatchewan's Women's Hockey team.

Pavely is the one in charge this time around and says he always enjoys these types of experiences.

"It's pretty cool to watch your own players. Last year it was nice to have some Wildcats there (Defenceman Mikayla Swallow, Captain Chloe Smith, and Kirwan) and see how they fare against some of the best kids in Canada."

The Wildcats head coach says he anticipates that the two Wildcats will fare well again this year, and part of that will depend on Team Sask conquering what Pavely calls a big factor in these high-profile competitions.

"A lot of times at competitions like this, the team that maybe gets through the nerves quickest and gets used to the pace of play the fastest are the teams that have success," the head coach said. "Hopefully that adjustment period for them will be quicker than players on some of the other teams."

A bit of a gift and a curse of sorts could be the reason for Team Sask's ability to create cohesiveness amongst the lineup and have success at this tournament.

"We have ten Saskatoon Stars on our team, which is quite amazing - it's the reason they're going to be the team to beat in our league," Pavely said. "Because there's a large number of them there, we're going to do some things that probably use their line combinations, maybe their powerplay a little bit. A lot of the other teams have two or three kids from each program, while we have ten from one... we might as well use that to our advantage."

After practices and team pictures in the days leading up to the tournament, Kirwan, Lind, and Pavely don't have to wait long to dive head first into action against the top U18 female hockey players in the nation.

They open against Team British Columbia Wednesday morning in the very first game of a tournament that Pavely says is an excellent way to witness first-hand the state that female midget hockey is in in Canada.

"You get to play and coach against the best players in Canada - kids that are vying for spots on the World Junior team, kids that are maybe the next group of kids that might get to play for Team Canada. So, it's a neat experience getting to see the best of the best that Canada has for this age group."