The Pontiac Meteors women’s hockey team hosted its second annual tournament on home ice in Fort-Coulonge over the weekend. The event drew eight teams from Gatineau and across the Ottawa Valley, twice the number that participated in last year’s inaugural edition.
Tournament organizer Lisa Soucie said she spent a lot of time doing outreach for the event to bring in more teams than last year’s four.
“It was a lot of outreach, a lot of going into Facebook groups, finding women’s hockey teams, and just kind of pushing ads everywhere,” Soucie said, noting she organized a bouncy castle, an onsite daycare service and a free skate on Saturday to make the tournament more appealing.
After two days of games, the Petawawa Stags claimed first place and the Gatineau She Hulks claimed second.
Representing Pontiac in the tournament were the Meteors from the Fort-Coulonge area and the Silver Beavers from Chapeau. While neither made it to the finals, both enjoyed the challenge.
“It’s the first tournament that we’ve played since we’ve had the ladies’ night,” said Silver Beavers captain Maryse Allard, who has been helping to organize a weekly ladies’ hockey night in Chapeau for three years now.
“We did a couple of games last year against Coulonge – some here and some at home in Chapeau – but it was fun to be able to put a team together and come out [for a tournament].”
Allard’s team faced off against the champion Petawawa Stags in a Saturday morning game, netting a solid two goals to their opponents’ three.
“We didn’t make it to the finals but we had a lot of fun with lots of laughs. It was a great weekend, a fun experience with a great bunch of ladies,” Allard said, noting she didn’t have enough numbers last year to put a team together for the tournament.
Soucie has been working to grow a weekly women’s hockey night in Fort-Coulonge for the past two years. She said while she has had no trouble putting together a team for games and tournaments, securing commitment to the weekly Monday night practices has been more of a challenge.
“We haven’t gotten good numbers coming out. We all have families and personal lives,” she said, noting she hopes hosting a local women’s tournament will help increase interest in a local women’s league.
“I’m still getting beginners. I have a couple of them that came out this season and stuck with it, and [I’ve seen] huge improvements with them. And I have a lot of teens that come out on the Monday nights that play for the Comets on the boys team and they’ve been coming out just to play with girls.”
Soucie said she’s already thinking ahead to next year’s tournament, which she said will be “even bigger and better.”
