It was Championship Weekend for the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), and the Ducks played host last Friday night. The club welcomed the world's best female hockey players to Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena for their semi-final matches as part of the 2022-23 Secret Dream Gap Tour.
Ducks, PWHPA Host Special Fans During Semi-Finals at Great Park Ice
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By
Jenelyn Russo / Special to AnaheimDucks.com
Formed in 2019 with the goal of "creating a sustainable league that provides equity, fairness, and opportunity in women's professional hockey," more than 100 female players, including more than 40 Team USA and Team Canada Olympians such as Hilary Knight, Sarah Nurse and Marie-Philip Poulin, went head-to-head for the chance to play in the championship game at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert on Sunday night.
The semi-final games saw Team Harvey's take on Team Sonnet, while Team adidas faced off against Team Scotiabank. Among the fans in attendance cheering on the players were three young cancer warriors who were special guests of the PWHPA and the nonprofit organization Triumph Together.
Founded in 2021 by Oceanside resident and former Jr. Ducks player Jack Gates, the goal of Triumph Together is to connect collegiate and professional athletes with kids at local children's hospitals who are facing health challenges. Triumph Together provides families with one-of-a-kind sports experiences such as tickets to games, signed gear and meet-and-greets with athletes.
As Gates entered his senior year of playing Division 1 hockey at Colorado College, he decided to use his love for sports to connect with the community and bring hope to kids who are facing much tougher battles than he faced on the ice.
"I saw throughout my career how much of an impact I could make in a kid's life when I threw a puck over the glass or signed an autograph or gave away a stick," said the 25-year old Gates. "The majority of us wake up every morning and don't think twice about our health, but these poor kids have to think about that every waking moment. I realized that if I was able to make them forget about that for just part of their day and give them hope, I was going to try and help as many people that I could."
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Five-year old Lizzie Grant, five-year old Rosie Jane Rosell and eight-year old Anahi Salinas, along with their families, were able to step away from their hardships for one night and experience hockey games played by some impressive female role models. For several, it was their first time watching the sport in person.
After receiving treatment for stage 3 intermediate neuroblastoma at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, Anahi is three years in remission, and her mother Jessica Salinas is appreciative of opportunities to be together as a family.
"We are so grateful," Salinas said. "Even with three years of remission, it's so hard. We still find ourselves always at doctors' appointments and catching up on things that put us off track while Anahi was in treatment. So getting these little moments with our family is truly appreciated."
The girls watched Team Harvey's defeat Team Sonnet 2-1 in overtime and then headed down to Team Scotiabank's bench to experience warmups ahead of the second semi-final game. They each received pucks, smiles and high-fives from several Team Scotiabank players, including forward Victoria Bach and defender Jaime Bourbonnais. The girls were then welcomed into Team Scotiabank's locker room to see the players before they took the ice.
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Team Harvey's player Jessie Eldridge is a former Colgate University women's hockey teammate of Gates' sister, Tanner, and had been looking forward to an opportunity for women's hockey to support Triumph Together.
"This allows the kids to get away and forget about the reality of life for a little bit, but also see some role models they can look up to, and just smile," Eldridge said.
The Canadian forward felt that supporting an organization like Triumph Together aligns with the overall goals of the PWHPA.
"That's our mission of this association right now, to push the women's game forward," Eldridge said. "It's awesome to come here and for the little girls that are in the stands to know that one day there will be a league for them to benefit from. But even if they're not hockey players, it's a reminder that we can be so powerful if we stay united and push forward together."
It was Lizzie's first hockey game, and while she is still receiving treatment through Rady Children's Hospital for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-cell ALL), her mother Iliana Grant acknowledged that being around people and taking in new experiences mean the world to her daughter.
"It makes her so happy making these memories," Grant said.
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Also diagnosed with B-cell ALL, Rosie Jane is 27 months in remission after receiving treatment at CHOC Children's and attended the games with her parents and three siblings, something that was not possible until now.
"We were not together hardly at all during her treatment," said Rosie Jane's mother, Emily Rosell. "So this is something where there are positive role models for these kids to learn from, but then we can also be together as a family. And Jack is so great. These kids really look up to him."
The girls proved to be good luck charms for Team Scotiabank as they capped off an exciting come-from-behind win over Team adidas, taking the second semi-final game in overtime, 4-3.
After the game, Team Scotiabank forward Tatum Skaggs invited the girls into the locker room for victory high fives and autographs. The girls were all smiles as they got their pucks and posters signed by the players.
"The hardships that these families have gone through just breaks my heart," Skaggs said. "So the fact that we can put a smile on their faces tonight, be able to have them watch a hockey game and hopefully allow them to forget about what happened for small amount of time, it means everything."
The PWHPA players may have towered over the three petite cancer survivors in size, but Skaggs and her teammates agreed that Lizzie, Anahi and Rosie Jane were the real warriors at the rink that night. And the girls' families are forever grateful to Triumph Together for providing these experiences that offer hope in the midst of hardship.
"We missed out on a lot, and we still do, so when we get these opportunities, we take full advantage," said Salinas. "It's not only for Anahi, but it's for our whole family."
For more information or to donate to Triumph Together, visit
triumphtogether.net
.
For more information on the mission of the PWHPA, visit
pwhpa.com
.