Hockey

VANCOUVER -- Carla MacLeod's eyes filled with tears at the thought of one more session in the weight room. Beckie Kellar had to overcome her fear of bears. Jayna Hefford thought "What am I doing here?"

Whatever the Olympic Games throw at the Canadian women's hockey team now that they've arrived in Vancouver, nothing will be harder that the month they spent together near Dawson Creek, B.C., last spring.

Boot camp, as it is not-so-fondly called, tested the women physically and mentally for 24 days in May and June. In the process, they pushed past their limits and help their teammates get past theirs.

When the player reconvened in Calgary in August to begin full-time training, they already had a strong base of trust and fitness to build on.

"They learned how to work through a lot of different things and things we might still be working through right now had we not done that," head coach Melody Davidson says.

Days that started at 7 a.m. and ended at 9 p.m. laid the foundation for physical and mental toughness that the players must draw on now that their final and biggest test is upon them. The Canadian women open the Olympic tournament Saturday against Slovakia at Thunderbird Arena.
Running, rock climbing, kickboxing, yoga, weight sessions, triathlons, in addition to on-ice drills, kept the Canadian women on the go from morning until night. Towards the end of boot camp, they rode their bikes 35 kilometres into the mountains, hiked up one and back down before making the return trip on their bikes.

Exhaustion would eventually hit. The players had to find reserves they didn't think they had to continue. They also learned to recognize when teammates were struggling and what help they needed.

"We call it hitting the wall. You just bonked," MacLeod says. "In the 30 days, I probably hit a wall three different times, where I just wondered 'what is going on? This is crazy.'

"I think that's why it is such great team bonding. All of that's important. It's testing your limits. It's neat as a person to see how far you can go and how do you react when you are in your low of lows. Do you yell? Or do you retreat?"

For some, the punishment began the moment they fell out of bed and laced up their shoes for the morning run.

"For those who are runners, they are pretty good at it, but a couple of us who aren't the best runners our heart rates were 170 or 180 for 25 minutes straight," MacLeod explains.

MacLeod, a defenceman from Calgary, reached the end of her emotional tether during a weight-room session.

"It was to the point where if someone had said one more thing to me, that was it. I was going to be done," she recalls. "(Tears) welling in my eyes. You are just so fatigued. But the next day, you wake up and you are better."
"I was crusty that day, but I wasn't the crustiest, so I don't think it was my lowest day."

For Kellar, a defenceman from Hagersville, Ont., about to play in her fourth Olympics, it was the prospect of riding her mountain bike and hiking through terrain that included bears that had her spooked.

"They gave us a quick tutorial on how to avoid/survive a bear attack, which didn't do a whole lot for me," she says. "I was scared. I have to admit."
Boot camp has become standard for Canada's Olympic women's hockey teams since they held one in Valcartier, Que., prior to the 2002 Games, They spend a month training in Prince Edward Island prior to 2006.

But this one was the toughest one yet, even for veterans like Hefford.
"This was my third boot camp, but there are moments where you fall into that rut of feeling `what am I doing? I'm a hockey player, not a biker, not a hiker," says the native of Kingston, Ont.

"That's the mental challenge. The physical preparation is one big part of boot camp, but the mental preparation and the challenges you face mentally as a group are maybe the biggest strength we get out of something like that."

Davidson says the experience of boot camp showed its benefits at November's Four Nations Cup in Finland. The games were held in different cities, the Canadian team spent a lot of time on the bus, yet won the tournament and beat archrival U.S. in the final.

"Our eating arrangements weren't ideal and we were travelling 75 to 90 minutes on a game day," Davidson says. "All of those things connect back to the stuff we went through in Dawson as a group."

"We're stronger than any of that. A year ago we would have been at each other on the bench. This time, we just kept battling."

The Canadian women have played a 55-game schedule in preparation for the Olympics since August. Many of those Games were on the road against Alberta Midget Hockey League teams.

Boot camp may seem a long time ago now, but captain Hayley Wickenheiser of Shaunavon, Sask., says the players' experiences in Dawson Creek will be important at the Olympics.

"I'm not a fan of team-building in a boardroom or a classroom," says Wickenheiser. "This was sort of the ultimate team building where people are climbing mountains and maybe they're afraid.

"We help each other work through those things and that brings you together as a team when you see people at their best or their worst or how they handle pressure."

The players were billeted with families in Dawson Creek, but Kellar's mother Shirley accompanied her to help care of her two young sons. Teammates Gina Kingsbury of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., and Meghan Agosta of Ruthven, Ont., stayed with them.

"Mel said to the team, 'the rules won't be the same for everyone. Situations will dictate what's fair. Becky's mom is here and nobody else's mom is here,"' recalls Kellar. "We all had a good laugh, but halfway through, I think everyone wished their mom was there because she cooked for us every night, the girls who were in my house.

"Every night we went home to a home-cooked meal. I think we would have bonked a lot earlier had that not been the case. Watch four years from now and everyone will ask to have their moms at boot camp."

Team building is also part of the corporate world as companies hold retreats and bonding exercises for their employees. But MacLeod believes that doesn't compare to the gruelling days the Canadian women's team spent together last spring.