Team Canada player leads Sir Wil attack in girls’ hockey

Howe isn’t in fact playing nets for the Lancers, although that’s the position where she’s earned her stripes with the Ottawa Senators Intermediate ‘AA’ team as well as the Canadian under-18 national squad.

“She’s been popping the goals in,” notes Sir Wil coach Ryan Hatfield, who owns the luxury of a second capable goalkeeper between the pipes in Morgan Hotston. “She’s playing so well that it does give me the option of putting Erica up front and making our team even stronger.”

Howe already carries an extremely busy hockey schedule, but the Grade 12 student wasn’t about to give up the chance to play for her school as well.

“It’s really fun,” she explains. “I love playing player. And it sort of wouldn’t be fair for me not to play school hockey.”

The Lancers have high expectations for this season – one target is they’d like to host a playoff game for the first time since Hatfield began coaching five years ago.

Hatfield says it’s still possible that Howe could play goal for Sir Wil later in the year – an idea that might be welcomed since there is one aspect of playing forward that Howe doesn’t entirely adore.

“Oh gosh, I can only get up the ice once before I’m sucking air on the bench,” Howe laughs. “It’s so hard. I never truly appreciated the back-checking of players until now.”

“I walked onto the campus and I just fell in love with the school,” explains Howe, who first visited the Potsdam, NY school with her Senators team for an exhibition game. “The coaches were really nice, the rooms were beautiful. And I just really liked the atmosphere of a small school like that.”

Clarkson, which is less than two hours from Ottawa, has a student population of only 3,000, but is certainly famous for producing strong hockey programs. Howe’s future team is currently ranked fourth in the entire NCAA.

“I was a little nervous about that because in games I probably won’t get that many shots,” notes Howe, who plans to study business. “But in practices, you get that much more experience with hard-working, skilled players.”

Although she was leaning towards Clarkson from the start, Howe nonetheless received many phone calls from recruiters since the summer.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” says Howe, who consulted with her mother and Senators coach Krista Black quite a bit to examine many different options before eventually settling in on her final decision. “I think I was just scared. It’s a big step in life.”