By Danny Floh Back
The fact that Lisgar Collegiate does not allow girls to play for their boys’ hockey team hasn’t stopped Louise Daoust from trying to get herself and her female classmates onto the ice.
When she arrived last year as a freshman, 15-year-old Daoust was shocked to discover that Lisgar didn’t have a girls competitive hockey team.
“I knew there was a league for girls and I figured that Lisgar would have a team because most schools did, and it is one of the bigger schools,” says Daoust.
Daoust, who currently plays for a competitive girls hockey team in Nepean, says girls should have the opportunity to play hockey for her school.
“So I thought why don’t I just make a girls’ team! It’s a great sport and it’s a lot of fun.”
Lisgar principal Angela Spence gave Daoust the necessary forms to register the team, and was impressed that Louise had made up a poster with her phone number on it by the first week of school.
“It is a positive thing when kids take the initiative to do this. It is great that Louise and the girls have got themselves organized to go ahead with this,” says Spence.
Due to the fallout from Bill 74, Daoust was forced to look outside of Lisgar’s faculty to find a coach, and she was able to recruit Mark Wight, her former ringette coach from six years ago.
“I think sports are an important part of kids lives,” says Wight, 45, whose two daughters hope to play on the Lisgar team. “I think part of their education is an opportunity to play sports as well as other extra-curricular activities.”
Though the team must wait until the end of the month for approval to join the league, Louise’s efforts have been applauded by all those around her.
“I think there is a large element of success in what she’s done, however it turns out,” says Wight.
“She strikes me as a well-organized young woman,” says Spence, who has coached for 15 years. “I think it is great that she might pull this off, considering that you need to not only organize the activity, but get the girls organized as well.”
Louise’s father Gerry, who co-signed many of the forms with Spence, says he thinks what his daughter is doing is terrific.
“You get out of something what you put into it, and she has put a lot of effort into this. If it doesn’t work out for her than it was a good lesson learned,” says her father.
It is only a matter of time now before Daoust will know if she can hit the ice to represent her school with her fellow classmates.
“Playing hockey has changed my life,” she says. “I just want everyone to have the opportunity that I had.”