Hockey star Sarah Nurse is out to find the next generation of Olympians in Hamilton

The Canadian Olympic Committee's talent search program is returning to Hamilton for a second time this weekend with Olympic gold medallist and Hamilton hockey star Sarah Nurse as a program ambassador.

The 28-year-old forward is joining her national women's teammate, Burlington-born Renata Fast, and Olympic track and field athlete Madeleine Kelly to promote the program as a way to help young people overcome barriers to becoming professional athletes.

"I don't think there's a program like it in the world, but basically in partnership with the COC and national sport organizations like Rugby Canada, Bobsled Canada and so many other ones, it gives young people the opportunity to show their athletic and Olympic potential," Sarah Nurse told CBC Hamilton earlier this week.

RBC Training Ground looks for people between the ages of 14 and 25 with athletic potential and helps them overcome financial and professional obstacles.

Nurse said she wants to help remove those barriers, especially for girls that don't know how to get started in their careers, or have anxieties about their future in sports.

Nurse, who was born in Burlington and raised in Hamilton, grew up in a family of athletes who encouraged her. 

"I remember watching my cousin Darnell get drafted into the NHL [into the Edmonton Oilers], then seeing my cousin Kia [a WNBA player now in Phoenix, Ariz.] play in the Pan American Games and all of those things really fuelled my fire," she said. 

"They're achieving such standards of excellence and they're achieving such greatness, like I want to be doing that, too."

She played hockey in the city as part of the Hamilton City Hub League before playing in Ancaster and Stoney Creek.

Now, fresh off 2022 wins both at the Olympics in Beijing and the women's world championship, she says she wants to help promote women in sport in particular. 

"Showing that women in sports are valued is so important," said Nurse.

Her involvement with the training ground program is part of those efforts. "It provides amazing access and if you're identified to have Olympic potential and possibly win a medal, you also get funded through the program, which is huge because sports especially at high levels costs money," she said.

"There are so many kids with great athletic potential who don't really know where to go to be identified," she said.

This is the eighth annual national search for local athletes, according to Evan MacInnis, technical director of RBC Training Ground. It came to Hamilton for the first time in 2020, where more than 300 athletes signed up.