Perspective is important. Micah Hart certainly has it.
Hart remembers the sense of anticipation by proxy last year at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence on the Camosun College Interurban campus when she worked out alongside the Canadian women’s sevens rugby team players as they prepared for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
Now it is Hart’s turn. The Saanichton blue-liner was named Thursday among the 28 players to the Canadian women’s hockey centralization camp for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“It’s going to take a while for the news to sink in,” said Hart, among nine defenceman named.
“It’s definitely surreal, especially after watching the rugby players up close go through their Olympic journey. I was lucky to see what they went through and how they prepared.”
Hart’s own potential Olympic journey now begins.
“It’s a huge honour and a dream come true to be headed to be with the country’s top players,” said the 20-year-old, who captained Canada to the silver medal at the 2015 IIHF U-18 world championship in Buffalo.
The Canadian camp will include 14 players who won gold at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
“When I consider the players I will be surrounded by, it will help me push boundaries to the next level,” said Hart, by phone from Ithaca, New York.
The sophomore Hart, a psychology major planning to study law, is currently writing exams at Cornell University after helping lead the Big Red to the quarter-finals of the NCAA tournament before a loss to Clarkson ended the season.
Hart describes herself as a “stay at home defenceman” and said she became a blue-liner in the Peninsula Minor Hockey Association after watching older brother, Ben Hart, play defence for the Peninsula Panthers of the Vancouver Island Junior League.
Hart was chosen the flagbearer for host B.C. during the opening ceremony of the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George. Three years later, she could be marching into the big Winter Games pageant in South Korea.
“Ever since I was little, I thought the Olympics were the coolest thing in the world, and my dream was to play in them,” she said.
“I’m one step closer. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.”
The 28 players named to the Canadian centralization roster will begin fitness testing this month at a venue to be determined.
The players and staff will gather in August at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary on a full-time basis with Hockey Canada. The lead up to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games will include the 2017 Four Nations Cup this fall and other preparatory games to be announced.
The camp will reunite Hart with new Canadian head coach and former national team player Laura Schuler, who coached Hart during the Islander’s first national-team experience in U-18.
“It’s so cool that my first national-team coach, in U-18, is now the Olympic coach,” said Hart.
“[Schuler] is an amazing coach. And being an alumni national team player is so valuable because she took the same steps we are now taking and knows [from a player’s perspective],” noted Hart.
The final 23-player Canadian roster for the 2018 Winter Olympics will be named in late December.
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