Barrie’s Jessie Eldridge knows her own hockey game well.
“I think I’ve always been a player with a good hockey IQ and an ability to see the ice, make little plays,” the 23-year-old tells BarrieToday in a phone interview from Calgary, where she's trying out for the Canadian women’s hockey team. “Maybe not too flashy, but little plays in the game — that kind of makes a big difference in the long run.”
In all, 29 players are competing for 23 spots on the national team, which will play as one of the favourites in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China beginning in February.
Eldridge, usually a right-winger, says the team will be chosen in December and making it is a daunting task.
“When you get to even the point we’re at right now, the 29 players that we have in Calgary, every single one is the best in Canada for a reason and chosen for a reason, so there’s not a ton that separates them but it’s the little details,” Eldridge says. “I think our whole team can classify as that (playmakers).”
She’s got an impressive hockey resume herself.
Standing five-foot-eight and weighing 170 pounds, the former Barrie Shark captained the Colgate Raiders, the women’s university hockey team in Hamilton, N.Y. She played 153 games, scored 74 goals, assisted on 89 others for a point total of 163. Eldridge was Colgate Athletics’ athlete of the year in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
She also played for the 2021 Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association Secret Cup, scoring a goal and adding one assist as Montreal beat Toronto, 4-2, in the final.
But Eldridge is part of the national program now, playing against arch-rival United States and Junior 'A' boys.
“We’ve been actively playing against the U.S.,” she says. “It’s definitely a challenge (playing against Junior 'A' boys), but I think we’ve kind of met the challenge head on and learned a lot from them and I think it will really help us out when it’s time to go play Finland this week."
The team leaves Monday.
In Alberta since July, Eldridge says training is where her focus lies.
“I think it’s continuously getting better every day,” she says. “One of the coolest parts of this year is being able to train and be on the ice with the best players in the country and in the world, and being in that environment day in and day out is so valuable to all of us.
“I know I’ve learned a ton from the older players and the veterans, and all us young ones continue to, so we continue to do that and make the most of it," Eldridge says.
Her international experience is limited to playing the Americans a couple of times, but that’s about to change.
“I’m really excited this week going to Finland, to have the chance to play against a different country for the first time,” she says. “I think it will be really fun.”
This would be her first Olympics, but Eldridge is more concerned right now with making the team than what Beijing will be like.
“I haven’t really thought that far ahead,” she says. “There’s still a couple of crucial weeks here before they name the team. So I’m more in the mindset of living each day now and getting as much out of the opportunity as I can.”
If she does go to China, it will be after travelling a long road.
Eldridge played minor hockey in Barrie for both the Colts on the boys side, for her first couple of years, and the Sharks.
“For me being a social person, it was definitely difficult having my own little closet of a locker room away from the team,” she says of playing with boys. “I missed that aspect of the girls and as I got older, learned more about the opportunities that existed.
“I actually moved because Barrie didn’t have a PWHL (Provincial Women’s Hockey League) team, which they have now (Barrie Jr. Sharks), which was awesome,” Eldridge says. “But I had to move to Toronto and go to boarding school in Grade 10.
“Growing up, it’s really cool to see how the female game has grown in Barrie and continues to do that. That’s been the coolest part of it, is seeing that change, just how the whole game is growing.”
Eldridge was interviewed by Rogers Hometown Hockey and a feature on her will air Monday night.
Her parents Duane and Lisa, along with brother Kyle, will no doubt be watching.
