A YEAR FOR YUKON

By MARIO ANNICCHIARICO

Team BC’s entry into the 2024 National Women’s U18 Championship, include some northern flair as a pair of Yukon additions will add to the mix.

Kira Makuk, originally from Calgary, is an assistant coach with the team and forward Emery Twardochleb becomes the very first player to represent Yukon at the Canadian tournament, set for November 3-9 in Quispamsis, NB. Both hail from Whitehorse.

“I’m super excited. I think it’s a huge honour to represent Team BC. I’ve worked hard for this. I’ve tried out for three years and I finally got it this year,” said Twardochleb, who began playing hockey at age five with just a handful of girls up north.

She played rep hockey with the boys up until the U18 level and now there are more than 100 girls involved in the sport with the Whitehorse Minor Hockey Association.

“I think it’s an honour for sure and super cool,” Twardochleb said of being a northern trailblazer. “There’s been a lot of people who have helped me along the way. Whitehorse is a super supportive community, and a lot of people helped me get to where I am today, including coaches, parents, family and friends.”

Twardochleb, who turns 17 in December, now attends Grade 12 at George Elliot Secondary School in Lake Country and is a part of RINK Hockey Academy of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League (CSSHL) in Kelowna.

Makuk played four years at the University of Calgary (U of C) and it was there when she first became involved in coaching. Her former junior high school teacher sent her a message on X (formerly  Twitter) asking her to go to coffee.

“He knew I was playing at the U of C and he was leaving the Hockey Canada Skills Academy and he wanted to bring me on as an assistant coach to make some extra money during university. I ended up doing that with him for three years and after he retired, I moved into a head role at a different school, but still with the Hockey Canada Skills Program,” recalled Makuk.

That kick started her coaching career and before she moved to Yukon in 2022. She was brainstorming ways to immerse herself into her new community. The only way she knew how to do that was through hockey and coaching. She sent the Whitehorse Minor Hockey Association an e-mail and said she had been coaching for five or six years and was wondering whether there were any openings for female coaches. 

Before she had even moved, she was an assistant coach for Yukon at the 2023 Canada Winter Games and the 2024 Arctic Winter Games.

“They were super cool, sort of like a mini Olympics for the kids, so it’s a great experience for the kids,” she said of those experiences.

As for her upcoming work with Team BC head coach Megan Price, of the Shawnigan Lake School U18 Prep team (CSSHL), Makuk is excited about the prospects.

“I think I have high expectations for these girls,” she said. “We have a really highly skilled group, so I’m excited to see what we can do. I fully anticipate that we will medal. I would like to say that it’ll be a gold medal around their necks, but these girls are great kids, super respectful people, and I think they’ll all go far in their lives.

“From a performance perspective, they have tremendous talent and we have lots of depth on all of our lines.”

She’s especially proud of being one of two Yukon representatives on the team.

“It definitely warms my heart. I don’t think, in Yukon’s history, that we’ve had a female make the team yet, so it really warms my heart to see someone from the territory come down and show that we do have some talent here, and there is potential to grow the game,” she said proudly.

Makuk, who obtained a Bachelor of Health Sciences, majoring in Health and Society at the U of C, currently works as a Project Manager for the Yukon First Nation Cancer Care Initiative. She joins the Team BC coaching staff for the first time during the 2024 Program of Excellence season.

Makuk has served as a skills coach with the Female U18 Yukon Wild Hockey Club since 2023 and has head coaching experience with the U15 Hockey Canada Skills Academy in Calgary (2021-22) as well as U9 Her-ricanes Spring Hockey Club in the spring of 2022.

This stint with the POE will be her highlight so far, she suggests.

“This is crazy, definitely the highest level of hockey that I’ve ever coached and may ever coach in my life. Just having the BC Hockey community and family behind me - it’s been such a close tight-knit group and having that support is amazing,” she said.

Twardochleb is tasting success at the RINK Hockey Academy and hopes to garner a scholarship at the university or college level. She also dreams about representing Canada as a future goal.

“Nationals will be a good challenge. I definitely hope to win, play hard and learn as much as I can,” she added. 

Mario Annicchiarico is a freelance writer based in Victoria who has previously covered the National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers, as well as the Western Hockey League.