This is the first in a three-part series previewing the 2022-23 season for the Nipissing Lakers women’s hockey team and follows the chain of success linked between the North Bay Ice Boltz girls' hockey program and the Lakers.
The Nipissing Lakers women’s hockey team rose to new heights during the 2021-22 season, becoming the first team in the school's history to compete at a U-Sports National Championship event. The Lakers went all the way to the gold medal game before bowing out to the Concordia Stingers.
With a silver medal around their necks and a run to the championship that won’t soon be forgotten, the success of that season can be linked back to the grassroots of girl's hockey in North Bay.
Part One: Growing up through the system and the experience as an Ice Bolt
“I was working at Elite Hockey with the bantam team and one of the parents asked if I was interested in coaching girls' hockey at the U-18 level. I had never really even pondered it, so after thinking it over, I thought it might be a good opportunity to try and take girls' hockey in North Bay to a new level,” says Darren Turcotte.
Currently the Head Coach of the Nipissing Lakers Women's Hockey Team, after a successful NHL career Turcotte returned to North Bay in 2005, the city where he had spent the majority of his junior hockey years. After stints with different teams around the city and the area, he took over the reins of the U-18 Ice Boltz in 2009.
“My idea was that I was going to push them and try to make them better and get them to go outside the box and see where it would take them,” says Turcotte.
“The biggest difference I found was that the players on the women's side do exactly what you tell them and I had to learn that I had to approach things differently. I had to explain and re-word things like, 'Hey I want you to go here on this play, but if this happens, you’ll have to move here or here and you’ll have to adjust to that.' Those were just some of the small things I picked up on quickly at the beginning.”
Turcotte adds, “For the most part, when you get to that level, they are overall just really good hockey players. They understand the game, they read the play well and they understand the concepts when you give it to them.”
The U-18 Ice Boltz became a tough team to play against and three years after becoming the Head Coach, Turcotte guided the team to the Esso Cup National Championship in 2013. The following season he was Head Coach of the inaugural Nipissing Lakers Women’s Hockey Team.
“It was an open position,” he says.
“Fortunately, I got the job and we’re going into our 10th year now and I’m looking forward to it, and a few more.”
Several Lakers' players followed Turcotte through the Ice Boltz system including a group that was instrumental in helping the Lakers to a U-Sports national championship Silver Medal in 2021-22.
Maria Dominico became one of the most recognizable home-grown talents the Lakers have ever had. Bursting onto the scene with a 15 goal, 26-point campaign (in 22 regular season games) during her rookie year, she led the offense while earning U-Sports and OUA Rookie of the Year Honours.
Dominico came up through the North Bay and District Girls Hockey Association thanks to a phone call.
“I was a soccer player first. I didn’t start skating until I was seven years old,” says Dominico. “The Association was looking for girls to play and they just started calling houses in the area asking if they had any young girls that were interested. My dad asked and I said sure.”
Dominico says even though she spent the majority of that first on-ice session falling down, she told her parents she wanted to come back.
Fast forward a few years and Dominico was making noise locally as one of the top players in the North Bay area.
“Having early success allowed the game to be a lot of fun for me. I was playing a few levels ahead of my age group. In grade ten, I played in the Provincial Women’s Hockey League in Durham.”
But Dominico didn’t enjoy her stint in Durham, and was home sick. She made the decision to come back to the Gateway City and suit up for the Ice Boltz.
“It allowed me to play for my hometown. It was a comfort thing for me.”
For Malory Dominico, the younger sister of Maria, it all came down to the coaching in the Ice Boltz system which has helped develop her game in to one of the league's top offensive threats.
“I was with Ray Irwin basically since I started playing hockey, and we had the same group of girls stay together the whole way through the system. We all wanted the same thing; we all had the same goals and Ray helped us get there.”
Malory says, “The coaches with the Ice Boltz really care about each player as a person. They want to help you on the ice, off the ice and overall be the best person you can be, not just the best hockey player.”
Malory played for Barrie in the PWHL along with about six other North Bay area players.
“I think that’s what made my decision easier to go down to Barrie in the first place. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.”
One of the players that joined her in Barrie was Britney Zack. Zack is originally from Garden River, Ontario (just outside of Sault Ste. Marie) but moved to North Bay to play for the Ice Boltz in her grade ten year.
Her older sister was on the U-18 team that went to Nationals with Turcotte at the helm.
“He was coaching with the Lakers while I was in North Bay, playing with Malory and Maria. I went down to Barrie with Malory, and eventually came back to Nipissing,” says Zack.
Zack was billeted in the city as an Ice Boltz player, “It was nerve wracking moving away at that age,” she says.
“I had no idea who anyone was in North Bay, but in the Soo, we didn’t have a league and so we just played games against boys' teams that were older and younger than us. Here we got to play much more hockey, at a really high calibre,” says Zack, adding that after her sister played here, she already had high expectations.
Rounding out the group of former Ice Boltz – turned Lakers for the 2022-23 season is Madison Desmarais, who was born in New Liskeard but moved with her family to North Bay at a young age.
“I played for Ron Gravelle when I first got here in my novice year. Had a good season, got lots of ice time and following that, things picked up. It just started to get more and more competitive and I’m thankful it worked out that way,” she says.
“New Liskeard is quite small and I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get to be the same calibre of player if I had stayed there. I likely would’ve had to move at some point.”
Desmarais did move eventually, playing with Cambridge in the PWHL. “That was for my Grade 12 year, after going through the Ice Boltz system and it really helped in getting me ready for the OUA level with the Lakers.”
Kiara Jeffries is the Vice President of the North Bay Ice Boltz and she says, “The long-term goal for our organization is to keep girls in sports for their whole life. We see a big decline once they get to that U-15 age group. They want to work or have other educational commitments and we want them to understand there’s also the recreational side that isn’t as much of a time commitment.”
Jeffries adds on the competitive side, they are hoping to continue this development of high performing athletes who have come up through the system to reach the university level.
“It would also be great to keep those players at home as they get to those stages,” says Jeffries. “For our current groups and future players to see someone like Maria and Malory on the ice with the Lakers and to know that they played with the Ice Boltz, that’s huge. They can also create those unique relationships with that next generation because they can recognize these players in the community.”
“It’s important to us to have that system in the city of North Bay,” says Turcotte.
“We’ve always had Ice Boltz players on the team and we have some players that are still going to be here for few more years and we have some other players coming up in the next little while that are in that group.”
In Part Two we’ll reflect on last season's run to the U-Sports final and how the Ice Boltz graduates helped the Lakers get there.