I've written a memoir titled Game On: What sport teaches girls about success. my writing shows that girls who experience the passion, triumph, and adversity of competitive sport will thrive as strong, successful women. Girls who succeed in sport find joy in the pursuit, in the drive...the drive makes us strong, and it stays with us forever. I am currently seeking representation for the book.
I spent my Canadian childhood playing with boys...playing hockey with boys. On the ice, I felt fast and free and electrified, and I loved it. I chased the puck for seventeen seasons…I played with boys and then I played with girls and then I played with really good girls. I ended up playing at Cornell, a Division I Ivy League program, with my best friend and teammate from home. But when she made the Canadian National Team and I didn’t, I was shattered…I felt that the game had failed me.
Twenty years later, with a Master’s degree from Stanford and a PhD from Drexel, I was a successful part-time engineer in southern New Jersey teaching my young kids to skate. While my daughter Erin didn’t want to play hockey, my son Jack couldn’t wait to get a stick in his hands. I ended up coaching his team, finding new inspiration in teaching the players the magic of a powerful stride, the grace of a connecting pass. I found my way back to the game and was right back where I started: the only girl on the ice with a bunch of boys.
This is a great time for this book. Memoir – creative nonfiction – has a place at the literary table. Women are finding our voices. We’re seeing these strong women running for office, breaking glass ceilings, excelling, and we all (women and men) want to know how they got that way.
I am who I am today – personally and professionally – because of the impact that sport had on my life. Hockey made me strong. But in my heart I’m a writer. It’s a beautiful game that I write about unlike anyone else I’ve read. I had a hockey piece published in the Globe & Mail, a Facts and Arguments segment that I’m really proud of.
Hockey people are fanatics. There are 1.2 million USAHockey members, almost 80,000 women, registration is growing faster than men’s. I have connections with former professional players in Philadelphia and in Ottawa. The Cornell alumni association is strong. And that’s just the hockey people. I go to professional events where women politicians want to talk to the women professionals because we are all women and we are doing this. Where 20 years ago we were competing against one another, now we are doing this together, supporting one another.
