Developing Leadership Skills Through Women’s Hockey

Written By: Julia Vellucci

Ellena Douitsis, assistant coach for the Humber Hawks’ women’s extramural hockey team, has played hockey since the age of five. She played for the Hawks during her time as a student at the University of Guelph-Humber, and Humber Polytechic, and returned after graduation due to her love for the sport and the team.

“I started in my first year of my undergrad, so four years. But obviously because of COVID I really only had three years of hockey in my undergrad and then after I graduated with my kinesiology degree, I came back for one more year and I did a wellness coaching postgraduate and played for Humber,” Douitsis said.

She came back to do wellness coaching not only for placement opportunities that program brought but also because she wasn’t ready to leave Humber’s hockey team.

“It was the best experience because I thought I was done my minor hockey and I realized that Humber had offered an extramural team,” Douitsis continued.

She got into hockey at such a young age as her dad was a big hockey guy with both him and his brother owning a hockey store.  “My dad actually had been my coach my whole life up until I came to college so I had always thought coaching was a really interesting way just to get a different viewpoint from seeing the game,” Douitsis said.

She was always told to do something she loves until she loves it no more which is why she played hockey for so long and came back to coach.  As a coach, she’s now seeing some familiar faces that she had played with including this year’s assistant captain, Jessica Wereley.

Wereley has been playing on the Hawks’ extramural hockey team for three years and desires to go easier on herself this year now that she’s in a leadership role as she doesn’t want her teammates to be really hard on themselves.

Hockey has taught her that it is okay to push yourself, but not to the point where you’re shutting down and that it’s okay to make mistakes, messages she wants to share with both her teammates and the younger generation.

She described an extramural team such as the one she is on to be tournament-based, with a practice a week and maybe five tournaments in a year which could possibly lead to provincials. The commitment is easier to manage than varsity sports, and still provides female athletes with a chance to play college hockey.

“I was the youngest and I was like, okay, there’s no way I’m going to make it, but obviously I’ll still try and then I’ll just come back next year and try again. But then I just kept making it through the trials. I was like, oh wow, this is pretty cool and then I made the team, which was pretty a good feeling,” Wereley described her journey trying out for an extramural team.  “I chose the school for a career and then I just got really lucky that the school I went to also had a pretty successful hockey team,” she said.

After Douitsis vacated the team captain role after graduation, Natalia De Marco was named captain for the Hawks’ extramural women’s hockey team.  De Marco is in her fourth and final year at the University of Guelph-Humber, applying to teacher’s colleges and is getting close to wrapping up her Humber hockey journey.

“I only started playing in my second year because I was worried about the workload and how much extra things would have to do with school to get my marks up, because I didn’t want to add any sports on top of that right away. Then I realized how much I needed it. Second year, I need to play hockey,” De Marco said.

De Marco has had the opportunity to also play for one of Humber’s varsity teams, rugby 7s, so a part of her wishes there was the funding for hockey to also be a varsity sport but she likes how she can manage it with her schoolwork and has a good dynamic with the girls on her team.

She has been playing hockey since the age of six, loves paying attention to the little details in the sport that allows everything to work out and wants to help get the team to a point where they are winning games.

“Everyone kind of enjoys each other’s company while we can because you only get this so often. We want our team to be a family. Families stick together. When you play, when you’re happy as a team, you play well as a team and it all comes down to who you’re playing for,” De Marco said.

She quoted a huge motto of hers which stems from the movie Miracle, “When you put on that jersey, you represent yourself and your teammates, and the name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back.”

De Marco emphasized extramural or varsity, a team is still a family and depending on one’s mindset and goals, there’s always room to go past that, especially with the PWHL now providing female players with an even bigger stage to play on.