By Jamie Shinkewski
In the span of a week, Sam Cogan won two medals in major women’s hockey events half a world apart.
First, she and fellow local Team Canada member Rebecca Leslie earned an IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship title March 30 in Budapest, Hungary, and then Cogan’s Nepean Wildcats won their first-ever Provincial Women’s Hockey League medal with a bronze at the league finals April 3-6 in Oakville.
“It’s surreal,” smiles Cogan, who scored in Canada’s 5-1 gold medal match victory over USA. “It’s so exciting knowing I’m a world champion and our (Wildcats) team won bronze. I don’t really have words to describe how I feel. I’m so excited and happy and glad that I could pull that off.”
It was a quick turnaround for Cogan, who only had two days of rest upon returning to Canada before playing six games over four days at the PWHL finals.
“I’m pretty tired. My legs are burning. It’s been a lot of hockey,” signals the 16-year-old forward who broke into the PWHL at age 14. “It wasn’t much time to recover but I tried to eat right and rest when I could.”
The invitation to join Team Canada for the worlds caught the PWHL’s #3 playoff scorer off-guard since she’d missed national training camps earlier in the season due to mononucleosis.
“I had no clue I was going to make (the team),” Cogan reflects. “I didn’t get to go to the May camp or August camp so I thought I had a very slim chance of making it. I was so proud to be able to represent my country.”
It was a similar feeling for Leslie.
“It’s honestly the best experience I’ve ever had in my life,” underlines the captain of the PWHL’s Ottawa Senators, who were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.
Both players agree that having a familiar face on the team made the experience even better.
“I know Sam quite well, she’s a great hockey player,” signals Leslie, who also teamed up with Cogan to win a U18 national gold for Ontario Red earlier this season. “It was great. We played with each other when we were younger so it was kind of nice to be reunited.”
Leslie, headed to powerful Boston University in the NCAA next year, scored two goals and three assists over the course of Canada’s five victories, including her helper on Canada’s thrilling 1-0 overtime victory in the semi-final against Russia.
“The game against Russia was pretty exciting,” recounts Cogan, who will play for the University of Wisconsin come the 2015-2016 season. “The parents on the Russian team were super loud and making crazy amount of noise so that was pretty cool. But obviously winning gold, that was the best memory.”
Cogan’s Wildcats set a record for most points in the regular season, posting a 32-3-3 record – a remarkable turnaround from her rookie campaign when they won only won six games.
Nepean went 3-1 in the preliminary round before losing their second contest to the eventual-champion Whitby Jr. Wolves 1-0 in the semi-final and then bouncing back to win bronze with a 5-0 victory over the Toronto Aeros.