As the end of my hockey season with the York Buds in the Senior B division of the Golden Blades Women’s Hockey League approached my anticipation for preparing for the CWHL draft heightened.
Heading into provincials weekend at the beginning of April I had a workout regiment planned and was ready to give up chocolate.
After my team went 3-0 to start the provincials we headed into our fourth game in under 30 hours; quarter-finals. The game ended in a tie and went to a double overtime where our team was handed a penalty. As I was attempting to clear our zone I wound up on a breakaway, and scored short-handed to put our team into the semifinals the next morning.
Our semifinal game also went to overtime where we lost a heart breaking match on a goal that deflected off one of our own player’s skates. We still had a berth in a championship game though, for the bronze medal.
Early in the second period of the championship game I went into the boards awkwardly with an opposing player and threw my lower back out. I came off the ice and my teammates sent me back out to play, they weren’t going to let me miss the rest of this game.
I was playing centre and taking faceoffs was becoming extremely excruciating, usually taking me a few seconds to fully stand up again from the bent position for the draw. I kept playing anyways because I was determined to take home a bronze medal.
Once again my team would face the familiar threat of sudden death overtime in a do-or-die game. I was put back on the ice and our line took the puck into the offensive zone. I took a pass from the left-winger who was at the top of the faceoff circle and put it through the goalie’s legs. The provincial bronze medal was ours.
Provinvial Bronze Medalists, 2011
In the days following provincials I went to physiotherapy for my back where I was told I had slipped two of my lower discs and all of my muscles had gone into spasm and locked in order to protect the injured spine.
Right away fear crept into me; would I be able to skate in time for the draft? Would I even be able to train in the upcoming months until the draft?
Since I had absolutely no movement in my lower back I was told to stay off the ice and away from the gym until my muscles relaxed and unlocked, the time frame was at least a month.
An entire month of sitting around, not playing hockey and not hitting the gym was not what I had in mind as a way to prepare for the CWHL.
Finally, the second week into May and over a month since my injury occurred I have been cleared to skate and train again. I have been given an intense leg workout to regain the strength I lost over the past month and have been advised to do a ton of abdominal and back exercises to rebalance and strengthen my core and avoid injury in the future.
Until the CWHL Draft in late July I will be updating my blog with how my training is going; getting back into shape after a month of absolutely no activity, getting my skill level back up to a highly competitive level after 18 months of playing Senior B hockey and the sacrifices, speed bumps and road blocks along the way.
Habsolutelywonderful 
WOW! I’m definitely going to be following your journey! I suffered a slipped disk last October, but didn’t stop playing until November, oops… It kept me out until end of January and it really wasn’t healed then, but it was good enough that I could play a game. It’s only really been fine since end of March and I’ve been training since then to make the beep test standard for the Team BC field hockey team.
I also play ice hockey and ringette, I suffered the slipped disk at a ringette tournament and the reason I was out so long is because I didn’t fully rest when I was “out.” I still played a couple tournaments and training camp for the Canada Winter Games ringette team. Had the games last February and I wasn’t missing those.
It sounds like you gave yourself the time to rest up and you seem ready to go out there and kill it! I’ll be following along, Good Luck!
The only reason I stopped playing was because my season ended. Lucky for me, or else I too would have kept playing and further injured myself. I had a month off after my winter season ended before my first summer game.
So cool that you also play ringette. I played 3 or 4 seasons as a child and my parents kept trying to talk me into playing hockey because “I could go further in the future with hockey than ringette” I kept saying no. We went to go register for ringette one season and the desk just said “league has folded, sorry” so my step dad signed me up for hockey and I’ve never looked back. LOVE hockey so so so much!
WOW, it sounds like you are a super strong girl that is not only determined but has the drive to make something of yourself while using the talent that was given to you. Im happy to hear you are back training and you are working toward the draft. Im routing for you 100% 🙂