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| The Bishop's University Polar Bears prepare to compete at Fredericton. | Letarte centre. |
You can see how important
hockey is to Bianca Letarte every time she turns around: the back of
her neck is tattooed with a red stop sign with the word 'puck' in all
caps. She definitely stops pucks.
The 21-year-old
Sherbrooke native is the only goalie of the Bishop's University
women's ice hockey team, the Polar Bears. She has played for the
Bears for four years, although she has attended Champlain College for
three. The Bears have worked hard this season to find the back of the
net, struggling with scoring, but have put up a good fight in the
Maritime Intercollegiate Women's Ice Hockey league tournaments.
Letarte sat down with us and described her passion for the sport.
Letarte started playing
hockey at five years old. "I started really young," she
tells us with a smile. She started as a forward, but a year later
discovered her true passion in the net. Her father played hockey
throughout her childhood and she remembers watching his games. She
traces her interest in the sport originally back to her father, but
she pinpoints the 1996 Winter Olympics as the moment she decided to
start playing herself. Goalie Manon Rheaume's silver medal "really
made an impression", she recalls.
Even though the Bears
practice Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at 6 a.m., Letarte says
that her favourite part of the sport is the training. She loves the
"dedication and work ethic" of her teammates and the
feeling of improvement, which doesn't come through in a game
situation.
Letarte takes us deeper
into the mindset of a goalie come game-time. "It's different
when you're a goalie," she says, describing herself as a bit of
a lone wolf. "It really is a mental game." Letarte's
pre-game ritual consists of warming up with her team and then going
off by herself to listen to some music. If her team loses the game,
she switches up her routine by removing her right pads before her
left. "When I was younger, I used to talk to my [goal] posts,"
she adds with a laugh. "I stopped doing that, though."
Those who have been
following the Polar Bears might remember the nine mid-season games
during which the team struggled to score. As frustrating as that was
for the offensive players, Letarte gives us a different perspective.
"I actually like it," she admits. She prefers to have lots
of shots to block because it helps her stay focused and "in the
zone". If she doesn't have pucks to stop, she can be easily
distracted.
The Polar Bears will be
headed for Fredericton, New Brunswick on Friday for another Maritime
Intercollegiate Women's Ice Hockey League tournament. Letarte says
the four member teams are evenly matched. "If everybody plays
the game as it should be played, we can win," she says
optimistically. "No doubt about it."
So, enough about the
Polar Bears. What will Bianca Letarte do next? She outlined her
teenage years as background. She was educated at Castleton, Vermont
until she finished high school, when she was recruited to be on the
Castleton team at the university but couldn't join due to financial
complications. After completing high school, she applied to Bishop's
University, although she was not accepted, and decided to go to CEGEP
instead at Champlain College. When she graduates with a certificate
in social science, Letarte plans to apply again to Bishop's and get
in this time. Social science is not her passion; she hopes to pursue
fine arts at university.
Bianca Letarte cannot
leave the ice behind. She plans to stay in the net for a long time.
Good luck to the Polar Bears in
Fredericton and good luck to Bianca Letarte, wherever she ends up and
whatever she decides to do. Whatever the future holds, the past has
shown us that she is great at stopping pucks.
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