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The 23-year-old forward is one of four newcomers on a Canadian
women's roster that is getting tougher and tougher to crack with
each passing year.
"I'm
a four-year overnight success you could say," Shewchuk said yesterday
after the women's team's first on-ice session at a Sarnia training
camp. "It's been a long time in the making. It's been a long hard
road, but I am just so excited."
The
native of Saint-Laurent, Que., felt like quitting in 1998 when
she was a late cut for the team that won a silver medal at the
Olympics.
"For
a little while after, I didn't want to do anything," she said.
"I dropped 20 pounds, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I didn't
want to play hockey. I remember being on the ice and shooting
pucks and thinking 'What's the use?'
"But
looking back on it, I think everybody needs a little bit of a
setback to really come back strong and I think that was mine."
Now,
Shewchuk can count herself among the best Canadian players who
are going for a sixth world championship starting Monday in Mississauga.
"You
look around the room and you see Geraldine Heaney and Hayley [Wickenheiser]
and Nancy [Drolet] and you know you're in the company of greatness,"
she said. "It makes you feel pretty good about yourself playing
with them."
Shewchuk,
5 foot 4 and 138 pounds, is a pure scorer. She leads Harvard in
goal scoring for the second successive year with 26 goals and
34 assists in 20 games, which is also a conference best.
But
it is her improved defensive play that put her on the Canadian
team along with first-timers Kelly Bechard of Sedley, Sask., Dana
Antal of Esterhazy, Sask., and Delaney Collins of Pilot Mound,
Man.
"She
brings great intensity, very competitive, good offensive touch,"
coach Mel Davidson said of Shewchuk.
"She's
worked hard at being able to play defence and as a result she's
here."
Shewchuk
played with boys until the age of 18 against and alongside players
such as P. J. Stock and Jason Doig, who are in the New York Rangers'
system, and Florida Panthers forward Peter Worrell.
She
was always the youngest and the smallest at the boys' midget levels
and that fostered her competitive spirit.
"In
order to take a boy's place on the team, you had to be not as
good, but better and you had to be better every day or else you're
going to have somebody saying 'She's no good because she's a girl,'
" Shewchuk said.
She
counts Worrell as one of her friends and felt for him when he
took a stick over the helmet recently from New Jersey Devils defenceman
Scott Niedermayer.
"Niedermayer
cranked my buddy the other day," she said.
Shewchuk
was the first non-goaltending female to play in the Quebec international
peewee tournament in 1990-91.
After
graduating from the boys' ranks, Shewchuk spent a year playing
women's hockey at a prep school in Connecticut before heading
to Harvard, where she is studying broadcast journalism in hopes
of becoming a sports broadcaster. Canadian teammate Jennifer Botterill
is a linemate at Harvard.
She
adores the Ivy League setting and has picked up a slight Boston
accent.
"You're
going to probably the best school in the world and right now we're
probably the best as far as college hockey has to offer," she
said. "You get the best of both worlds and it's really a privilege
to play there."
NOTES:
Veteran forward Nancy Drolet didn't take part in the first on-ice
session yesterday morning because of a cold. . . . Canada plays
an exhibition game against Germany tomorrow in Kitchener.
Reprinted
with permission
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