Looks can be deceiving.
So when you see the smiling face of Taylor McElroy coming at you on the ice, you’d better look twice.
The 14-year-old female dynamo is playing elite hockey with the Bow Valley Timberwolves bantam AA squad this season.
That’s right. A girl, playing full-contact hockey with the boys. The only visible cue this unique Cochranite has to offer on the ice is the light-ginger ponytail flowing from the back of her helmet.
From there, it’s all hockey, all the time. She’s blazing down a similar trail followed by fellow Cochranites Kara Kondrat and Taylor Sawka, graduates of the Timberwolves peewee AA boys program now skating with the Rocky Mountain Raiders AAA bantam squad in the Alberta Major Bantam Female Hockey League.
But McElroy has taken it to the elite bantam boys level.
“She’s the first female player to play with the boys at bantam double-A,” Timberwolves bantam coach Dave Strang offered. “It’s a compliment to the coaching staff. She chose to play with us instead of the girls this year. She’s trying to elevate her game for years to come. So it was a compliment.”
The 5-foot-2, 131-pound forward, who plays lacrosse in summer and was on Team Alberta’s bantam girls lacrosse team at the Canadian championships in July, is just trying to play at as high a level as she can.
“I like it, I like hitting them. That’s why I like playing boys hockey instead of girls,” she said outside the dressing room, grinning from ear to ear. “This year I made the triple-A girls team and this team. So I had to decide which team I wanted to play on. I wanted to play with the boys.”
She’s contributed two goals and four assists in 22 games this season, and is second on the team with 34 penalty minutes. Body contact aside – full contact is discouraged in girls hockey – McElroy wanted to train at a high level as well.
“The coaches on the girls team are nice and really good coaches, but they don’t push you as hard,” she observed. “Our dry-land training is two hours at the gym. And we do circuits and running. He (coach) pushes us really hard. I like it.”
This is McElroy’s second year in bantam, having played for the Tier 1 Rockies boys last season. But the jump to double-A has been an eye-opener.
“It’s really fast. The guys are getting bigger and stronger. I always have to keep my head up now because you don’t want to get run over. Everybody’s more competitive.”
But she’s up for it. Every game, some Einstein on the other team tries to get her off her game by calling her a girl. She just ignores it, which works in her favour when the antagonist is then put off his game because his trash talk is shot down in flames.
Bottom line, she chose bantam AA boys hockey because: “I thought this would make me a better hockey player.”
She hopes to make the Midget AAA girls program next year and then take her game to the elite female level.
“I coached Taylor Sawka as well,” Strang surmised. “I think the two of them, I think they have potential to play for Team Canada one day at the Olympics. They’re top-notch, elite players.”
