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Lac La Biche hockey player encourages female athletes to strive for their goals

Lac La Biche 18 year old is enjoying her rookie season on Female Alberta Junior hockey team

A young Lac La Biche woman is moving up the ranks of the hockey world — and she hopes her efforts help other female athletes from smaller communities see their potential to do the same.
Meghan Henderson is an 18 year old veteran of the minor hockey ranks, and she's recently earned a spot on the Fort Saskatchewan Fury Junior A Female Hockey Team — a team currently in the middle of the standings in the nine-team Alberta Junior Female Hockey League.  It's an opportunity the fast-skating forward hopes will encourage other girls to look for similar ways to advance their skills. 
Henderson has been playing hockey since she was four. It's passion she obtained from her dad and brothers. 
"I've always wanted to be just like them and play hockey just like them," she said. 

Unlike them, however, Henderson realized that if she wanted to go on from the female minor hockey levels — she left the Lac La Biche female Midget Clippers last year after skating with the team for three season — there aren't too many local options. Although she can skate at an advanced level, if she wanted to continue her athletic goals on a female hockey team, there weren't any local options. The collegiate Portage College Voyageurs is an all male team, as is the local Junior B Clippers. The Fury was a perfect option — but it was a tough battle — physically and mentally — to get there. Making it through tryouts, she's been playing for the team since last September.

"I was really happy  that I made the team because I was putting all this stress on myself...and if I did not make it, then I would have had nothing  to  do for  the first time in 15 years," she told the POST last week, on a mid-season break for the Christmas holidays.

The Fury, which won the female junior league championships in 2013 and 2016, are currently sitting with a 7-7 record on the season. League games continue next week, when Henderson — who continues to wear the number-14 jersey as she did in Lac Lac La Biche — and the team face-off with the Calgary Titans on January 11.
Henderson is currently the only girl from the Lac La Biche area to have made it onto the team, and although she is proud of her accomplishment, she feels the pressure to keep with the team as there will be more players trying out in the seasons to come. 
Les Cote was Henderson's hockey coach in the Lac La Biche Minor Hockey League levels for almost seven years. 
He agrees that it is more competitive for female hockey players, especially those in smaller communities, but he's proud of how far she's come. 
"She always showed up, and she played hard every time. She loved the game for sure, and she always wanted to be out there as much as she could," says Cote. 

Henderson was a team-leading scorer in her last season with the female midget Clippers. So far this season she's got one goal and five assists in the first half of her rookie junior season.

As she gets more experience, Henderson hopes to continue to elevate her hockey career, and has hopes to elevtate her education at the same time. Getting ready for post-secondary studies, Henderson is hoping to continue playing hockey at a college or university level.

The young players says her success so far in female hockey is comparable to the successes and opportunities of any athletes in any sport, and she hopes more young female athletes will lace up and chase their goals.
"It doesn't matter if you're a guy or a girl. If you're a good hockey player, then you're a good hockey player," says Henderson. 

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