Former Minnesota Frost players Michela Cava, Sophie Jaques, and Claire Thompson spoke on what they're hoping their championship experience will bring to the Vancouver Goldeneyes.
Michela Cava has hoisted the Walter Cup twice as a member of the two-time defending champion Minnesota Frost. Having such a strong team made moving on from Minnesota hard; but with familiar faces by her side, Cava is pushing for her third-straight championship with the Vancouver Goldeneyes.
“We obviously had two exceptional years and made a lot of good friends there,” she told the media after the second day of training camp. “I learned so much and was able to play with amazing players. It’s always hard to leave environments like that, but I’m super excited to start something new and be a part of this group, and be a part of the first team coming here and having hockey out west, and all the fans being excited to have us out here. It’s just fun to be a part of, and I know not only me, but everybody else is super excited to be a part of this group.”
Some of those amazing players Cava mentions are her former Frost teammates. The group of them total six: herself, Claire Thompson, Sophie Jaques, Brooke McQuigge, Denisa Križová, and Mellissa Channell-Watkins. They’ll make up the strong, championship foundation of a team that is already gunning for their first Walter Cup heading into their inaugural season.
“It’s a really good group of girls, and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better group. So I’m pretty excited,” Cava expressed.
“It definitely makes the transition easier, just walking into the rink and seeing friends and getting to say hey and just catch up on life, I think makes it a lot more enjoyable for all that extra time you have to spend at the rink,” Jaques elaborated on the impact of having familiar teammates off the ice. “Even when things are chaotic, you have a group that you can just chill and hang out with. So I think it’s nice to have a good balance between things.”
It’s the experience from this particular group that the Goldeneyes will likely lean on most as they make their push for their first Walter Cup.
“There are a lot of things you learn along the way. It’s a long season and an even longer playoffs, and something that on the professional women’s side a lot of people haven’t experienced, so I’m excited to share my perspectives of going down the stretch with a great team last year and getting to hear the perspectives of other girls that maybe weren’t so successful on the stretch,” Thompson explained after training camp.
“Every win is going to look different, and you can’t get too low after losses or too high after wins,” Jaques added. “There’s so many good teams in this league, anybody can win on any given night. So you’ve just got to take away positives from every single game and continue to improve throughout the season.”
Cava echoes the sentiment of committing to team culture and putting in a spirited effort every minute of every game. “It’s a long season. It definitely comes down to how you perform at the end, and you go through a lot of ups and downs throughout that time, and you’ve just got to be able to stick together as a group and find ways to win. Hopefully we can bring that culture here, and try to get our team to the top again. That’s the goal.”
All six of these former Frost players may have concluded their time with Minnesota, but if Vancouver has its way, their championship status will persist.
“To me, what it takes is having that strength at the end of the season to persevere when you feel tired, and battling until you get that trophy.”