Whitecaps bring hot streak, refreshed attitude into second half of season
Winless after their first four games of the season, Whitecaps captains were feeling some urgency ahead of their early-December women’s hockey series against the Metropolitan Riveters.
“It was kind of, in the players’ minds, a must-win weekend just for team morale and whatnot,” assistant captain Sidney Morin said.
So, the group called players-only meetings to assess how they could play better as a team, get everybody on the same page — between last season and this season, the Whitecaps experienced major roster turnover — and set some goals for that weekend.
“We were sick of losing and we just kind of got together and said, ‘What do we need to do different? What’s missing here? What can we focus on this weekend to make sure that we get these two wins?’ ” Morin said. “… I think it’s important at times to have discussions without staff there where people can be maybe be a little bit more vulnerable and not be afraid to say what’s on their mind.”
They walked away from the weekend with a pair of victories, and are now 4-4-2 on the season. That’s good currently for third place in the Premier Hockey Federation standings with 14 points. After a holiday break, the Whitecaps will resume play on Saturday in Buffalo, N.Y., against the Beauts, looking to keep things going in the second half of the season.
“I think our captains did a really good job of bringing everybody in and helping each other to buy into the systems that we need and the work ethic that we need in order to be successful,” goalie Amanda Leveille said. “We truly started rolling since that Riveters weekend, and we all believe in each other, and we know that the second half of this season is going to be very exciting for us.”
Their first three series of the second half — against the Beauts, Riveters and the Montreal Force — all are on the road, and the first two series are on back-to-back weekends, presenting a challenge right off the bat.
But after a holiday break to rest and reset, Leveille said players were eager to reunite at practice, bringing a “new energy” to the ice, ready to tackle that challenge.
By this point, as the season has progressed, a team that introduced so many new players at the beginning of the season has now adapted to each other’s playing styles, grown as a group and learned to trust each other more, Morin said. And as they continue on to the second half of the season, they believe the benefits of that will be reflected even more in their play.
“We believe that we have more potential and more to offer,” Leveille said. “And we’re excited to go into the second half of the season, which almost feels like a new season, a new start, and to get rolling on with that.”
