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By Kirk PENTON The Brandon Sun “Right now, every body’s thinking about Salt La City.” DELANEY COLLINS Delaney Collins’ hockey career began innocently enough in the tiny western Manitoba town of Pilot Mound in the early 1980s. Now, the 23-year-old Calgary resi dent is only 13 months away from pos sibly competing on the world’s stage at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Collins is one of nine defencemen currently battling for six spots on Canada’s women’s hockey team that will compete in the Olympics next February. “I never saw myself going to the Olympics to play female hockey,” Collins said yesterday in a telephone interview. “When I was playing with the boys, I only saw myself continuing on playing boys hockey and then see ing how far that would take me, think ing I'd play in the NHL sometime. “That changed once I got to high school and the big announcement that female hockey would be in the Olympics.” The next 10 months will deter mine whether the 5-foot-3, 135- pound defenceman will achieve her Olympic dream. She expects to participate in the national team’s five-game TSN Challenge —a tour against Sweden later this month in B.C. and Alberta and then hopes to play in an exhibition game against the US. at Denver’s Pepsi Center during the NHL’s all-star weekend. Following that, there are the Canadian senior women’s champi onship in PEI in late March, the world championship in Minnesota in mid- April and the official Canadian ae camp that starts Augin Collins said she expects the Olympic team roster to be announced in late November or early December. While she has thought about what it would be like to don Canada’s colours at the Olympics, she isn’t getting ahead of herself. “It’s hard to say what it’s going to feel like, but I know it'll be a long process getting there and a battle to earn my position on the team,” said Collins, who played four years of female high school hockey at Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Sask. ~ It’s hard to say, but I see myself in the top four (on the depth chart) and climb ing. With each competition, I gain more confidence and I feel myself becoming more and more of a fixture on the team. But you just never know.” She was a first-time member of the national team that won its sixth straight world title last April and she recorded two assists in Canada’s gold medal performance at the Four Nations Cup in Salt Lake City in November. Collins is relatively small, but believes what she lacks in size she makes up with speed. “I think my mobility and my offence are helping me earn a position on the team right now,” she said. “I get a lot of opportunities to play on the power-play, so I’m trying to take advan tage of that. “I like jumping into the play and kinda provide the second wave of offence whenever I get the chance.” Collins’ chances of making the Olympic team look good right now considering how much playing time she’s been getting, but she also knows that nothing in sports is ever certain and that there are eight other defence men gunning for the same goal. “Right now, everybody’s thinking about Salt Lake City,” Collins said. “They've got their top nine and it’ll be a battle. “That’s the tough part about my sit uation. You just don’t know what each year is gonna be like and whether you’re gonna be on the team and whether all your work is for some thing.” NOTES — Carberry’s Morag McPherson was invited to the national team’s evaluation camp last August in Calgary, but was released back to the Ottawa Raiders of the National Women’s Hockey League, where she has 10 goals and 9 assists in 25 games . Neepawa product Sherrie White is having quite the fine start to her colle giate female hockey career in the U.S. White is playing for the Findlay University Oilers in Findlay, Ohio and she leads the team in scoring with nine goals and nine assists in 20 games over all. She also leads the team in confer ence scoring with four goals and three assists in five games, including a goal and two assists in their win over the Wayne State (Mich.) Warriors on Monday night. The Oilers are 4-0-1 so far in the Great Lakes Women’s Hockey League. Ce AMADA Delaney Collins of Pilot Mound could become the first female hockey player from the Westman area to play in the Winter Olympic Games.
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sun
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Wed, Jan 17, 2001
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Manitoba H.
CA 17 Aug 2026
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