It takes a full day of travel to get to the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, and whichever direction you look, there are beautiful green flat fields as far as you can see. When you arrive at Wilcox, you can’t miss the Notre Dame campus as it’s the main feature of the town. From the outside it looks like an ordinary school, but once you go inside, it looks nothing like the ones we have in Australia.

The school has its own ice arena which is bigger than any I have seen in Australia, with 20 changing rooms and its own skate sharpening room. It has a full gymnasium, weight room and specialised off-ice hockey training areas. The off-ice facilities mean that you can train almost any time of the day and build skills without needing to be on the ice. One of my favourite machines passes pucks to you from a hole in the wall and you then have to shoot the puck at the net where the lights come on. The computer keeps records of your score and you can track your improvement. It's amazing and like nothing I have seen before. You can also pass and shoot off-ice with your teammates as the whole floor area is made of special tiles which play like ice. It would be amazing to have an off-ice room like that in Sydney.

The week was very busy. We were on ice three times a day- twice for training and once for a game where we played different teams in the camp. The on-ice session in the morning was all about skating and improving those 2% skills in our game. The afternoon on-ice session was all about systems and plays that we use on the ice. My favourite drills are the large flow drills that we did in the afternoon which mimic game situations on the ice. I practiced my skating, passing and game awareness which always need improving. We also had a 3-on-3 competition which I really enjoyed.  With only 3 players on the ice you have to make your passes crisp and to the tape so you don’t create turnovers. In between the ice sessions we used the off-ice area, as well as spending time learning about the game of hockey and how to prepare mentally and physically.

For the camp I was placed on the red team. All the girls on my team and on other teams were so nice and everyone enjoyed meeting an Australian. Many of them were from the local area and played for the Regina Capitals but some were from other provinces, like British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta. But, there's no doubt I travelled the furthest to get there. I've made a lot of new friends and I'm keeping in contact with them now that we're all back home. I learned so much about Canadian teenagers. For example, they like chocky milk as much as us Australians and I now have a terrible craving for those Eggos and Nestea ice tea that we just can't get in Australia.

The whole experience was made amazing by the coaches, managers and helpers. They made the drills fun and exciting and they encouraged us the whole time to find our best inside us, the whole week was all about improving our own goals and skills and I believe I achieved one main goal of mine by scoring 3 goals in a game. It was amazing that the standard of girls’ hockey in Canada is so high and it has encouraged me to work towards improving girls’ hockey in Australia as well.

The whole trip was made possible by Air Canada and the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) and I cannot thank them enough. For a thirteen-year-old like me to be able to attend a camp like this and bring some of that knowledge back to my team mates in Australia has been the experience of a lifetime. It has inspired me to work even harder at my game, knowing that one day I might meet those same girls on the ice at an international tournament when Green and Gold takes on the world!