Haliburton County has a rich history when it comes to developing high-level athletes.
One need only glance at names inducted into the Haliburton Highlands Sports Hall of Fame, or featured on the ‘Mural Wall of Sports Heroes’ at A.J. LaRue Arena – National Hockey League stars like Bernie Nicholls, Ron Stackhouse, Cody Hodgson and Matt Duchene, CFLers Mike Bradley and Taly Williams, curler Jake Walker – a former Canadian Junior Champion – and, notably, Olympian Lesley Tashlin, who competed in the 100-metre hurdles and 100-metre relay for Team Canada in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
That’s an impressive list for a small community a long way from pro-level training facilities. It speaks to the quality of grassroots sports programming across Haliburton County.
I was encouraged, then, when I heard a group of parents is trying to revive an all-girls hockey program with the Highland Storm. It’s been at least a decade since the Storm iced a dedicated squad, with girls instead playing on mixed teams in local league and rep.
It’s meant local talent has left the community to chase their hockey dreams. Sterling Nesbitt, who played two seasons of NCAA hockey with Indiana Tech, spent her youth training at the Ontario Hockey Academy in Cornwall, ON, while Cheyenne Degeer, about to start her Grade 12 year at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School, played on boys teams in the Central Ontario Wolves AAA system (based in Lindsay) before joining female programs in Peterborough and Central York. Degeer will play NCAA hockey in 2025, having earned a scholarship at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.
Maybe their talents would have taken them outside the community anyway – but having the chance to develop locally, I feel, is important. Here’s hoping the relaunch is a success.
Womens’ sports have surged in popularity recently. Soccer has been on an upward trajectory since the 2015 Women’s World Cup, held in Canada. It was watched by 750 million worldwide – a major increase from the 63 million that tuned into the 2011 tournament. The most recent version, held in 2023, saw viewing figures exceed two billion for the first time.
While women’s hockey has always been a big deal come Winter Olympics, the professional game has been largely ignored in North America.
There was excitement then, last year, when the Professional Women’s Hockey League launched, promising a platform for the best females to play club hockey in Canada and the U.S. Across 72 regular-season games, in-person attendance averaged at 5,448 per game, while more than 40 million tuned in on YouTube. Not bad.
The Summer Olympics concluded last weekend, with Canada finishing with 27 medals – 17 of those earned by women. Superstar swimmer Summer McIntosh, hammer thrower Camryn Rogers and Katie Vincent, competing in canoe speed racing, combined for five of the country’s nine gold medals. Their performances set a great example for the younger generation and showed what’s possible with hard work.
We’ve had our fair share of impressive performances from County-based girls recently – Emmerson Wilson and Avery Horner won a silver at COSSA and competed at OFSAA for badminton in 2023; Violet Humphries earned bronze in Nordic skiing at OFSAA in February; while Addy Parish won a gold medal at the Legion National Track and Field Championships in Calgary last week, jumping 11.59 metres in the triple jump.
We’re in a really good position now when it comes to recognizing and appreciating womens’ sports. Times have changed from 25 years ago when I was growing up, where boys played sports and girls played with dolls.
Being a girl dad, I can’t wait to show my daughter all the amazing things our female athletes – professional and amateur – are doing.
All these women, including our young local athletes, are pioneers for future generations. They’re breaking down walls that have stood for generations.
Keep doing what you’re doing, girls.
