It’s not often you get to represent your province in a national tournament.
But for Red Deer’s Brett Wold he’s getting the opportunity to represent Alberta a second time.
In his first appearance, he was an assistant coach on the 2019 U18 Women’s National Championship hockey team.
However, this month Hockey Alberta announced Wold will be the head coach for Team Alberta U18 Female hockey team for the 2023 Canada Winter Games in Prince Edward Island.
He said it’s an honour to get the job.
“It’s a privilege just to you know be able to represent your home province and a province I’ve lived in pretty much my whole life and I was born here,” Wold said.
His assistant coaches will be Innisfail’s Ally Bendfeld and Evan Vossen from Medicine Hat. The video coach will be Edmonton’s Jessie Olfert, goaltending coach Marlène Boissonnault from Calgary, and apprentice coach Shanya Shwetz from Edmonton.
Also from Red Deer is director of hockey operations Kendall Newell. Newell and Wold have known each other for some time after working together in the hockey world, including the 2019 U18 women’s team.
Up next is their first camp from July 12-17 with the top 68 players in the province. From there they will cut down to the top 30 players and will continue on with more camps until the roster is finalized for the games.
“The main goal, obviously we’re going there we want to show well. We want to defend that gold medal that they won back in 2019 here in Red Deer and at the end of the day we just want to make sure that we do everything we can to give these girls the best experience possible,” Wold told the Advocate.
“Winning the gold medal is the ultimate goal but making sure that these girls develop and they become better people on and off the ice as well is also a huge goal for us.”
Wold has been the head coach of the U18 AAA Red Deer Sutter Fund Chiefs the last four years and most recently won the Alberta Female Hockey League’s coach of the year award last season.
He anticipates he’s coached against most of the players coming to the Team Alberta camp or has seen them play in tournaments.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea of a number of girls who potentially can be there as well so It’s been good. We’ve been doing a lot of video and stuff and just making sure that we’re doing our homework and we make the right decisions moving forward,” he explained.
Before coaching the Chiefs, Wold coached one year at the midget AAA boys level before switching to the girls side. He was the assistant coach for three years before taking on the head coach role.
Representing Alberta will be an incredible experience, especially working with the top players and coaches in the province.
“I kind of had my eyes set on the 2023 games. I always said after 2019 that this was a goal of mine that I wanted to get to and four years later we’re here and I’m pretty excited to take this team and be able to coach them and bring them to Prince Edward Island,” he added.