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This Coquitlam girl is having a ball with hockey

Keasha Dahlstedt’s passion for hockey doesn’t end when she takes off her skates. The 16-year-old student at Dr.
female ball hockey player in Coquitlam
Keasha Dahlstedt, a student at Dr. Charles Best secondary school, plays ice hockey with the Tri-City Predators, but this summer she and teammate Jenna Proulx have been named to Canada's junior national ball hockey team.

Keasha Dahlstedt’s passion for hockey doesn’t end when she takes off her skates.

The 16-year-old student at Dr. Charles Best secondary school, who plays for the Tri-City Predators Midget A1 team, has also been invited to join Canada’s junior national ball hockey team at the world junior championships to be played in Slovakia June 30 to July 5. She’ll be joined by one of her teammates on the Predators, Richmond's Jenna Proulx.

Dahlstedt started playing ball hockey three years ago she suffered a concussion playing lacrosse and was checking out other options for spring/summer sports. Last year, she was part of the first team from British Columbia to compete at the national junior under-19 girls championship that was played in Coquitlam and Burnaby. The event was dominated by teams from Ontario, which won both pools.

But Team B.C. coach Paul Hundal, who is also the president of the Burnaby-based Metro Ball Hockey Associations, saw an opportunity.

Encouraged by how well his side performed — it finished third despite being cobbled together from players getting floor time in co-ed leagues — Hundal spearheaded the creation of the province’s first all-female ball hockey league, which begins play in March.

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He said a lot of lessons were learned from that experience and fuelled his desire to see what can be accomplished if girls can develop their skills in a comfortable, supportive situation.

“If we want to be a place where we can compete [with national champion Ontario], we need this,” Hundal said. “Let’s see if we can continue that progression and get them playing together during the year.”

Dahlstedt said the idea of an all-girls league makes sense to her.

“There’d be a lot more players at the same skill level,” she said. “I believe it’s going to be a real awesome opportunity.”

The fledgling league is geared towards girls ages 11 to 19 from the Tri-Cities, Burnaby, New Westminster, Vancouver, Delta and Richmond. Registration is free.

Hundal, who honed his coaching chops leading a variety of boys teams, said it’s all about building a base for the sport.

“The opportunity here is to offer a sport for another demographic, to play a sport that currently exists for just a few now,” he said, adding younger female players on existing co-ed teams often drop out of the sport as they mature and the physical and mental approaches to playing begin diverging along gender lines.

“We want to encourage and create a place where they can develop their talents.”

Coquitlam's Dahlstedt said she hopes the new league will mean more familiar faces on the national team’s bench, which is currently dominated by players from Ontario. It may even swing the sport’s power to the west coast.

“[Ontario] is such a good team,” she said. “I think we were a bit blown back by that. I think having a whole girls' league where we could have played against, we’d probably have done better.”

• For more information about the new league, go to www.metroballhockey.ca.