March 8 is International Women's Day. In the week leading up to it, SaltWire Network is sharing stories, all written by women, focusing on this year’s theme: "A challenged world is an alert world, and from challenge comes change." Each day, we will tackle a different subject area as we celebrate women's achievements, raise awareness, and encourage our readers to take action towards equality. Read more stories here.
Erin Denny saw her older sister playing hockey and something clicked.
“I watched her play and I told my dad I had to join,” the 18-year-old from Eskasoni, N.S., recalled.
But when she joined her first team about 10 years ago, none of her teammates were like her sister.
“It was more of a boys thing than girls, so I started off as the only girl on an all-boys team,” Denny said.
Not having an all-girls team at a younger age is common, though, so Denny didn’t think anything of it.
The next year she was called up to play on an all-girls team in an older division, where she started to gain more confidence.
With not enough girls to have an all-girls team the following year, she returned to an all-boys team in her second year of peewee.
That’s when she noticed being the only girl on the team made a difference.
“I had to get dressed in a separate dressing room and there was that separation,” Denny said.
“There wasn’t separation on the ice, like they didn’t treat me any different, but I didn’t get the full team experience playing with the boys.”
With hitting starting in bantam, Denny was happy to go back to playing on an all-girls team.
“Boys just have different skills. They’re stronger and faster, so you just don’t feel as confident on the ice.”
So as she continued to play on all-girls teams, Denny gained more and more confidence on the ice and kept getting called up to play in higher age divisions.
“Playing with the girls, I felt more comfortable on the ice,” she said.
“I had that bond with all the girls I played with, so it was more of a sense of connection and chemistry that I felt with them than the boys.”
Denny became the first Mi’kmaw woman to play for Team Nova Scotia at the Canada Games, among many other accomplishments throughout her hockey career.
Now, she’s in her first year with the Saint Mary’s University women’s hockey team.
Denny is proud of how far she’s come, but she’s hoping she can inspire girls to follow in her footsteps, especially those from her hometown.
“I’m trying to create a path for them and show them that there are opportunities that you can have,” she said.
But it can be tough to show off the sport to younger girls, Denny said, when it feels like men are more often in the spotlight.
“There’s some really good women’s leagues out there and they don’t seem to get the same recognition that men do,” she said.
“I’d really like to see more of women’s (hockey) just to get the exposure and recognition that they deserve.”
Not only does she want to see more girls try out hockey, but she also hopes more Mi’kmaq girls will give it a go as well.
Denny is now in her second year with Hockey Nova Scotia’s all-female Indigenous hockey program, the two-year pilot project that launched in Membertou, Eskasoni and Truro last year.
“There’s been some really good numbers in the program and I feel like it’s a good way to get involved, make those connections and show those little girls it is possible to get somewhere,” she said.
“Even starting off as a little girl who doesn’t know how to skate, which was me at one point, you can play university hockey.”