A Vernon player is part of the pool of 109 top young women’s hockey players in Canada invited to participate in a pair of virtual camps with Hockey Canada’s National Women’s Program.
Anne Cherkowski, who will turn 18 on July 6, is one of 30 forwards along with 20 defencemen and nine goalies attending the BFL Canada National Women’s Development Team Summer Camp, presented by Sobeys, meeting weekly until athletes return to university in the fall.
Cherkowski is slated to attend the University of Minnesota.
She is one of five players invited to the camp that helped Canada win silver at the 2020 IIHG U18 Women’s Championship in Slovakia in January.
Cherkowski won gold with Team Canada in 2019 at the IIHF U18 Worlds in Japan.
“It is important to recognize the accomplishment of these athletes being identified in our program at the under-18 and development level; they are a big part of our future moving forward,” said Gina Kingsbury, director of women’s national teams with Hockey Canada.
“The virtual sessions taking place allow us to connect and educate our athletes on their development. We are also trying to take advantage of this opportunity to connect our next-gen athletes with our current senior athletes, creating a strong tie between generations of our program.”
As the virtual meetings progress through the summer, the athletes will cover topics that include at-home strength and conditioning plans, mental performance plans and check-ins, nutrition, dry-land skills, skating simulations, team-building activities, short-term international competition preparation and meetings with coaches.
The online sessions will take place up to twice weekly, with critical information being communicated to athletes to allow them to continue to evolve as high-performance athletes in this new environment, and will utilize the strengths and experience of Canada’s National Women’s Program leadership to help connect one-on-one, athlete-to-athlete.
READ MORE: Vernon product wins world hockey championship
READ MORE: Vernon’s Anne Cherkowski wins silver with Team Canada at U18 world championships
roger@vernonmorningstar.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.