Lloydminster native Alivia Foster knew she was skating into largely uncharted waters this past fall when she represented Team Alberta in the Canadian under-18 women’s hockey championship at Mount Pearl and Conception Bay South, N.L.
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Foster, who regularly plays defence with the U18 AAA Lloydminster Steelers, was selected to an Alberta contingent made up mostly of players from the heavily populated centres like Calgary and Edmonton.
“It was an unreal experience,” said Foster, otherwise an assistant captain in her second year with the Steelers in the Alberta Female Hockey League.
“It was really good to represent not only Alberta, but also Lloyd. There aren’t many people from Lloyd who have ever been on the (provincial) team, and there hasn’t been one for a few years.
“It was super good competition. Our team didn’t do the best, but we bonded really well. The week was so much fun. The hockey was so good and everything. Overall, it was a really great experience.”
Foster turned 16 in November, a week after the national championship. She believes the prestigious tournament broadened her knowledge and development not only hockey-wise, but also on a personal level.
“I didn’t know as many people, coming from Lloyd,” she said. “Like, all the Calgary girls know each other, and the Edmonton girls know each other. But I made a lot of good friendships throughout it, though.
“I had to kind of open up a lot more than I usually do. So, it was good experience. It got me out of my comfort zone to go talk to more people and create more friendships with people you play against (under normal circumstances in Alberta).”
Some of those familiar faces included a cluster from the Edmonton Junior Oilers White team that won the Esso Cup national U18 girls’ club championship last April in Lloydminster. On home ice, Foster performed admirably as a rookie with the host Steelers in that swan song for the venerable Centennial Civic Centre.
This season, she has made such connections with the five Oilers who were chosen to the provincial team — Julia Curran, Brynn Evans, Evie Hanson, Ciara Lang and Bree Prediger.
Shortly after the U18 nationals, Foster played against those same girls and scored the lone Lloydminster goal in a 4-1 loss to Edmonton at the Cenovus Energy Hub.
Last weekend, those rivals faced each other again in Edmonton as the Junior Oilers White (13-3) defeated the Steelers 3-1 on Saturday.
With a 2-3 record, Alberta placed seventh in the national championship at Newfoundland this November. During that tournament, Foster missed just one of the Steelers’ regular-season games in the Alberta league.
“I was super fortunate on that,” she said. “I was supposed to miss two, but I was lucky I only missed one, because the other game was postponed.”
Foster is a leader with a young Lloyd team that has punched above its weight in the provincial league this season, compiling a 5-9-2 record through 16 games and sitting sixth in the eight-team loop.
“We had a really good start of the season, and then we won Crown,” she said about that Edmonton-area U18 girls’ tournament. “It’s been really good. We just keep pushing.”
The Steelers were back in tournament mode in mid-December for the Mandi Schwartz Memorial in Wilcox, Sask.
After posting a 1-2 record in preliminary play, Lloyd defeated the Swift Current Wildcats 4-3 in overtime in the playoff round. Jamie Hensch scored the OT goal. Steelers captain Skylar Heinrichs tallied twice, and Peyton Oborowsky collected a goal and an assist.
The 16-team tournament involved top female clubs and prep schools from across Western Canada.
Lloyd opened with a 5-2 victory over the Saskatoon Stars and lost 4-1 to the Winnipeg Avros. The next day, the Steelers dropped a 4-1 decision to Shawnigan Lake school from British Columbia.
In last Saturday’s loss to Edmonton, Jayda MacLeod netted Lloyd’s lone goal on a power play.
In a couple of weeks, the Steelers host fourth-place Calgary Fire Red (10-3) on Jan. 17 and 18 at the Hub.
The smooth-skating Foster has recorded a goal and two assists in 15 games with the Steelers this season.
At this year’s U18 nationals, she picked up an assist in Alberta’s 4-3 victory over Team Atlantic, the eventual silver-medallist.
“My role was a lot different on the provincial team,” said Foster, five-foot-10 and 150 pounds. “I was more defensively (oriented) on Team Alberta, and it was really good. I thought that I played my role well and I adapted to it well.”
In the national spotlight, virtually all of Alberta’s games were close, including its 4-3 loss to Ontario Red in the quarter-finals.
Alberta secured seventh after edging Saskatchewan 3-2 on Hanson’s overtime goal. It was another big finish for Hanson, whose heroics in Lloyd last spring helped Edmonton win the Esso Cup.
Scouting during that high-profile tournament contributed to the selection of provincial teams this past summer and fall.
“They kind of watch all year-round,” Foster said about Team Alberta’s scouting. “They invited 48 people to a summer camp, and then we had a weeklong, really hard camp in Red Deer, and from there they cut down to 28.”
During their fall camp, the Alberta U18 girls played exhibition games against the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. Afterward, Hockey Alberta announced its final 20-player roster for nationals.
As she continues to progress on the ice, Foster’s future likely includes university hockey.
“I’m just trying to decide right now where I want to go,” said Foster, a Grade 11 student at Lloydminster Comprehensive High School.
Her older brother Aiden graduated from LCHS last June on the same weekend that the Tampa Bay Lightning selected the 18-year-old forward in the fourth round of the NHL draft. Now in his third year with the WHL’s Prince George Cougars, Foster has 10 goals and 19 points after 35 games this season.
“I talk to him every day,” said Alivia Foster, whose 11-year-old sister Avery also plays hockey.
Aiden’s break at Christmastime was relatively short, so Alivia planned to “talk to him and hang out with him” for a few more days during a visit to Prince George. On that trip, she was excited about seeing the Cougars play against the Victoria Royals on back-to-back days in late December.
“They’re a really good team again this year,” she said about Prince George (23-13-2). “Everybody didn’t think that they would be, since a few of their top guys left last year, but they’ve had a really good year so far.”
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