The world of female athletes: Haylee Moore

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Gearing up. Haylee Moore

The good ol’ ringette game.

Haylee Moore is a different breed of person, willing to stand in a net while moving objects get shot at her. Yes, that’s right, Haylee is a goalkeeper in the empowering sport of ringette. Even though ringette tends to be low contact compared to its relative sport of hockey, Haylee never has to fear missing her contact fix while being in net. This was something that she knew early on she needed to be a part of. Initially starting as a general player it did not take long for her to find her spot on the ice. By the age of 10 she was back in net and absolutely crushing it.

From age 13 to 19, Haylee was fortunate enough to play in a AA league before aging out. This provided her with the support she needed to hone her skills and to become committed to her sport. This league was extremely demanding and constantly kept her on the go as she would have practice on the ice twice a week, dry land workouts in a gym twice a week and one game per week. The demand that this schedule had forced her to be on the go all the time and grew her feeling of community within the parameters of the sport. Now that she is unable to continue on in the league Haylee has switched to playing in the Open A division. She finds this significantly more compatible with her life as a fourth-year psychology student as they only have games once a week. The team chooses not to practise, which has allowed her more time to focus on the other aspects of her life while still ensuring that she can continue participating in the sport she loves.

As we can all imagine, Haylee has quite the list of accomplishments under her belt, or should we say under her equipment (Editor’s Note: Ha). From all these amazing achievements, the one that takes first place is when she had the opportunity to play at the national ringette tournaments. This consisted of 10 days of 24/7 ringette which was made up of ceremonies, games and skills competitions. During this time she was able to compete in 7.5 out of 10 games and competed in one of the skills competitions. This resulted in her being awarded as top goalie for her age division which is an amazing accomplishment.

Throughout her ringette career she has found that the biggest challenge is actually the game itself. There is a significant level of speed and agility that is needed in order to play ringette well and it can be difficult to gain these skills. The sticks that are used do not have the blade on the end like hockey sticks and are just a straight stick that you need to try and stab into the center of the ring. This makes it extremely challenging to not only gain possession of the ring but also to ensure that you can maintain positioning. Ringette is very fast paced, making it important to be able to keep your head up and keep your stick in the ring.

Something that has resonated with Haylee during her time as an athlete is remembering the importance of hard work. She continues to try and inspire the girls that she has recently started coaching with the same mentality regarding the importance of hard work. It’s one thing to have talent and skill but it’s a completely different story when you have motivation and are persistent with your level of effort. You can have all the talent in the world but if you’re not willing to put in the effort to get better at those skills, that talent will be wasted. Even if you are not where you want to be, if you keep pushing yourself towards getting the highest results, you can then you will always be satisfied with the outcome. The losses are expected but you can always find comfort in the journey.

Ringette is something that Haylee will continue to pursue for as long as she possibly can. This is about more than the adrenaline she gets when she is on the ice. Having the ability to be a part of a female-dominated sport is an extremely empowering thing for her and having the chance to share this with other people is something she finds such immense joy in doing. We will continue to see her on the ice until she is broken or too old – whichever comes first.

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