Something to prove: How Blayre Turnbull became the ‘glue’ of the Canadian women’s hockey team
CBC
On the ice inside a rink in Etobicoke, Ont., where Team Canada was running its second Olympic training camp this past fall, head coach Troy Ryan skated over to Blayre Turnbull.
Ryan didn’t like the team’s passing during that day’s practice. He wanted to see if his long-time Canadian assistant captain saw what he was seeing on the ice.
She gave Ryan a nod.
“I now know that someone like Blayre, who I trust, is feeling the same way I'm feeling,” Ryan said about that day. “So I can go home with confidence as a coach to know that I'm probably heading in the right direction."
Over a decade on the national team, the 32-year-old has become someone trusted by coaches and teammates alike. A player who thinks like a coach, she’s become a bridge between Ryan, the rest of the coaching staff and the players.
She’s not the flashiest player. She might not score the game-winning goal.
But in the tense moments in the biggest games, Turnbull is one of the players the Canadian staff rely on most to defend the house.
“She competes hard and that's her bread and butter,” fellow assistant captain Jocelyne Larocque said.
Off the ice, few players are more important to the Canadian program than Turnbull, who’s looking to go to her third Olympics in Italy this February.
“I'm still learning from her," Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin said in September. "I'm still in awe every time I watch her do her thing. As a leader, she has a big role in this group. For us, we lean on her. We learn a lot from her. She's the glue to this team.”
At the heart of it all is grit, something Turnbull learned early on growing up in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County.
Turnbull grew up in Stellarton, N.S., a town of fewer than 5,000 people that was built on the gruelling work of coal mining. It sits more than 150 kilometres northeast of Halifax, and it’s the place that has shaped and propelled Turnbull toward the career she has now.
When Turnbull was growing up there, the only way to play hockey was to play with boys. She never wanted to get pushed off the puck by them and always wanted to compete harder. That applied to the boys she played organized hockey with, as well as her younger brother, Brent, who she often battled on the driveway.
It’s how she’s always approached the game, but that mentality goes beyond the rink, too.
