There are some athletes that have to tell you about how great they are. And then there are some who don’t feel they have to, not because they are not at that level but because it’s just not part of their composition.
Maybe unassuming is the right word. They just go about whatever it is that they do at the highest level that they can and that’s what they expect of themselves.
Wynona Creyke is one of those athletes. Soft spoken and positive, this tall right winger says she’s not a goal scorer but a playmaker. Obviously she must generate a few plays because she’s just back from the Canadian Indigenous Hockey Championships where the B.C. squad finished with a medal for the first time.
After that, she was selected to try out for the B.C. under 18 team.
Earlier in the season, the Prince George Northern Capitals team she plays on finished second at the provincial championships.
She started playing hockey at age seven and played on mixed teams until she was 14. Then she moved on to the Terrace Kermodes for a couple of years before heading to the Prince George team this year.
In her first season with Prince George, she was named an alternate captain.
“I was very nervous at first, but became more confident as the tournament went on,” she said about the national championships.
“We played last year’s winners (Saskatchewan) in our first game and beat them 5-0. We went on to win our pool,” she said.
B.C. went all the way through to the semi-finals where they ran into Saskatchewan again.
“They beat us but it was a great experience. I met a lot of people and made a lot of new friends,” she said.
Her performance there and at the B.C. championships caused some of the provincial powers to invite her to the under 18 tryout camp in Lake Cowichan.
“I’ll find out about making the team by the end of the month. It was a very high level of hockey,” she said.
The Grade 11 student said she’d love to go on someday and play for Team Canada. Following high school, Creyke would like to play at the college or university level.
While she would consider playing in the U.S., she’d like to play at Calgary or at the University of British Columbia since they offer the scholastic program she is most interested in: justice. Following that, she would like to join the RCMP, which she has been interested on for a few years now.
While she is done with hockey for this season, she is playing soccer locally and will be getting ready for the tryouts with the Northern Capitals. They play in the Major Midget Women AAA division.
While she wanted to thank the many supporters who have helped her this season, she wanted to single out a couple of coaches who helped and encouraged her when she was staring her hockey career.
She felt that Ed Groot and Dave Tucker had given her a lot of support and helped teach her many of the elements of the game she has become so proficient in.