Roslyn School now offers students of varying levels of experience an opportunity to participate together in our national sport, thanks to the efforts of Principal James McMorran, gym teacher Mark Sokalski and several parents and volunteers.
“We were looking at a way to get a lot of kids involved in another form of exercise that they really, really liked," said McMorran. "It was important to us to make sure it was a program and not a team that was going to start playing games, because that by its very nature becomes exclusive. We wanted to have it as inclusive."
The new hockey program, which has become an extension of the school's phys-ed program, is intended to get youngsters out of the house and onto the ice.
“Kids have changed over the years," said Sokalski. "A lot of the kids are doing many things after school. It’s less sports-oriented than when we were kids. Certainly in public schools, the focus has been on less costly extra-curricular stuff."
“James and I are both phys-ed guys, and you certainly don’t have to look very far to see the interest in hockey in the parents and the kids,” Sokalski said, adding that there were many hurdles to overcome in preparation, including costs for equipment, ice time, transport and securing coaching expertise.
"We looked into getting some ice time and one parent suggested flooding the playground,” he said. Luckily, the Westmount arena provided five hours' ice time to help get the program rolling. Now ice time is rented once a week, with some funds collected from parents.
“We’re lucky, as the arena is just down at the bottom the hill, whereas we know a lot of programs where transportation is the deal-breaker," McMorran said. "When you get into a league situation where you have to travel around, the transportation gets very expensive.”
As it stands, the program is well on its way.
“We’ll have an exhibition game with Royal Vale in February, and maybe other ones also,” Sokalski announced. In the meantime, he said, other schools have asked Roslyn for ideas on how to get a hockey program going, so there may be more inter-school games in the future.
To ensure the young players get quality training, Roslyn phys-ed teacher Gillian Merrifield is providing coaching at practices. Merrifield, who played for the McGill Martletts, is currently playing for the Montreal Stars in the Canadian Women's Hockey League. She is joined by parent volunteer Brendan Kelly and Skylar Adams, a fourth-year McGill Physical Education student. Roslyn parent and governing board member Thanasi Dionisopoulos also had a hand in helping to get the project going, with phone calls and lobbying.
Hockey has a long history at Roslyn. In the mid 1930s, the school had teams named the Roslyn Boulevards and the Roslyn Rovers. In those days, the school even had a skating rink in the schoolyard, complete with woodstove-heated shacks.
Memories of those past days are still present in the school's main hallway, where a display case holds numerous trophies — one of which has two engraved plates listing Roslyn as the winner of inter-school tournaments between Westmount public schools. The other schools listed on the trophy are King's School and Queen’s School, both of which opened in the late 1800s and amalgamated in 1960 to form Westmount Park Elementary School.
Some old photos of the teams and drawings of the schoolyard rink can also be seen on the walls of the same hallway, as well as in the book 'Roslyn: The Story of a Canadian School', published in 1977 to commemorate the school's 70th anniversary. Several copies of this book are available at the Westmount Library.
With 100 years of history and hockey programs going back to the 1930s, Roslyn School seems ready for a good, long run with their new project.
