BC Hockey announced Monday, May 3 the 51 players invited to attend the Female Under 18 Provincial Development Camp in Salmon Arm, BC from May 20-24, 2010. Of the 51 players attending the camp 26 will be selected to attend the fourth stage of the selection process for Team BC that will compete at the 2011 Canada Winter Games.
"The BC Hockey Female High Performance program has spent the past 12 months identifying and evaluating the progress of the best talent in our province, culminating in the BC Cup competition in Duncan,” said Team BC head coach Greg Hermiston. “We have invited a very talented group of 51 players to the Provincial Development Camp in Salmon Arm May 20-24, 2010. With our camp slogan ‘the only easy day was yesterday’ we are expecting the competition for positions to be fierce."
The Provincial Development Camp staff will include some of the top coaches and instructors within female hockey in BC Hockey. At the conclusion of the Provincial Camp, Team BC evaluators will select 26 players to advance to stage 4 of the Canada Winter Games identification process.
The athletes were selected from the 2010 Female Under 18 BC Up held in Duncan from April 21-25. With it being a Canada Winter Games year, BC Hockey also has the ability to evaluate and invite players that competed at the BC Winter Games as part of the Female Under 16 Program. In addition some athletes were exempt from participation in the Female U18 BC Cup as a result of playoffs with their club team or due to injury. Fitness tests were analyzed and played an important factor in the selection of the invitees. The camp in Salmon Arm is an intense competition between the players. The camp includes rigorous on and off-ice training, fitness testing, skill assessment, as well as a series of intersquad games.
The BC Hockey U18 level is the final step in the BC Hockey Female High Performance program and the athletes in attendance at the camp represent the best BC has to offer in that age group. Many have progressed through the U16 program where they were introduced to training techniques and expectations that they have carried forward to the U18 level. The U18 championship is also the first step in the Hockey Canada Program of Excellence. Athletes will be evaluated in location for possible inclusion in further Hockey Canada programming.