COW HEAD — Vanessa Brown beams with pride when she reflects on wearing Newfoundland and Labrador’s colours at the Atlantic Challenge Cup in Moncton.
The 14-year-old Grade 9 student at Long Range Academy in Cow Head on the Northern Peninsula suited up with the provincial Under-15 female hockey team at the 15th annual Atlantic Challenge Cup hockey tournament earlier this month.
Registered with the Gros Morne Hockey Association, Brown punched her ticket to the prestigious tournament after catching the eye of the coaching staff at two training camps last summer.
She was thrilled when she got the news she had made the cut.
“It was just amazing. I was just so proud to be selected to play that calibre of hockey and to be selected one of the few to represent Newfoundland,” the daughter of Max and Nancy Brown said Tuesday.
For every practice and game at Gros Morne Arena, Brown doesn’t have a problem with having to travel 45 minutes every day just so she can be on the ice. She is committed to being the best player she can be so she knows nothing will happen without hard work and sacrifices.
The aggressive forward wasn’t in Moncton long before she realized being a member of an elite team provided her with an experience she won’t forget anytime soon.
“It was undescribable. The amount of skill over there was just amazing,” she said. “The people I met and the coaching staff ... it just taught me a lot that I will take through all my life. It was just the best experience of my life.”
She also saw how other elite players her age put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into their training and is motivated to do even more work to make herself both a better person and player.
“You can never give up. You always got to give your all and get out there and work at it because nothing is going to be given to you,” she said.
Brown’s team, which posted a 1-2 round-robin record, lost 2-1 to the representative of Hockey Nova Scotia 2-1 in the showdown for bronze in Moncton. Brown collected an assist on her team’s only goal of the game — a first-period marker by Caeleigh Fewer.
“I felt so proud to be over there, and to actually pick up a point was just amazing,” she said.
She learned a valuable life lesson through the experience that appears to be more important to her than medals or trophies.
“I learned that there are so many amazing people out there and opportunities are endless if you just work at your dreams,” she said.
Looking ahead to the future, Brown has already decided she is going to seek more ice-time this winter with the hopes of cracking the line-up of the Under-18 female team next season. She hopes her hockey pursuits land her an opportunity to play at the university level and then her biggest goal of them all — a spot on Team Canada’s female hockey team.
Brown doesn’t look at her dream as anything far-fetched because she has seen others work hard and make amazing things happen.
Besides, Deer Lake Red Wings star Mark Robinson, who runs the minor hockey program at Gros Morne Arena, has always preached to her the importance of a good work ethic so she is well aware of what she must do to reach her dream.
“Mark always taught me that you have to work and if you do then great things are going to come to you,” she said.
