After 15 years of playing women’s hockey at a pretty high level, I have had the chance to play with players from all across Canada and the United States and against players from Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Russia, China, England and Australia.  Now with Total Female Hockey, I get emails from players and coaches from across the world looking for ways to take their game to the next level.

Every time I get a message from some far-flung corner of the world, I am amazed at the tremendous growth of female hockey world-wide.  And I want to share these stories from every corner of the women’s hockey world here at Total Female Hockey Club.

Our first story is from a college teammate of mine and former Canadian National Team member playing in Russia.

Correne is one of my best friends in the whole world and is currently playing elite female hockey in Russia.  She sends mass emails to her former hockey teammates that are absolutely hilarious.  And while I can’t share all of the details of her Russian adventures with you, I will start off by sharing a few of her stories from when she first arrived in Moscow.  Just to give you a little context, Correne is originally from a town of 400 people in central Alberta, so you can only imagine the culture shock she experienced when she first got over to Moscow (population 15 million).

Learning the language…

“Day to day life in Moscow is pretty hard when you literally don’t know ANY Russian. So I am trying very hard to start learning the language. I am starting with the alphabet which has 36 letters and is quite confusing. P is R, C is S, H is N, Y is U…well, you get the point.   So many letters are switched, a few are the same and then there are a bunch of other crazy letters that are pronounced like ts or shch or zh, which i wouldn’t say comes naturally to me.  Anyways, knowing letters doesn’t do you much good when you are in a store and trying to buy something and some old shopkeeper keeps asking you questions in Russian.”

And you thought your road trips were long…

“You don’t have to travel too far to find a female hockey team to play against in Canada or the United States.   However, looking for the same set up in Russia could leave you driving many, MANY kilometers before finding a team for girls.

Currently in Russia, there are 5 women’s teams for a country much bigger than Canada! The five teams are distributed throughout the country with teams in Dmitrov (outside of Moscow), Nizhny Novgorod (500km east of Moscow), Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg (about 1500km SE of Moscow) and Krasnoyarsk (a 5 hour FLIGHT east from Moscow, close to Mongolia!).

[Here's a picture of Correne's jersey - Russian name and all.]

The majority of the national team players play for the two teams closest to Moscow and have an incredibly large rivalry. The five teams play a double round robin format with each team hosting and traveling to the other teams. The winner of the regular season is crowned the Russian Champion and subsequently is able to compete in the European Championship the next year.  Teams travel by bus or by plane, which as you can imagine, requires a HUGE budget!  Thankfully, there are government appointed sponsors required to fund the teams.”

Can you imagine taking a 5 hour flight to play a league game?  I will never complain about having to drive 2 hours down to the highway for a game again.

I have to admit that every time I get an email from Correne about her Russian adventures, I am a little jealous that I am not over there experiencing it all with her.   So I will continue to share her experience through her stories.

Correne has agreed to send regular updates from Russia.

What would you like to hear more about?

It can be about her experiences both on and off the ice.

Share your questions below and I will send them off to Russia.