An Airdrie RCMP constable is among Canada's Finest – the hockey team, that is.
Cst. Jenna Kirkwood of the Airdrie RCMP will be switching out her policing uniform for hockey gear from July 28 to Aug. 6, when she travels to Winnipeg to compete at the 2023 World Police and Fire Games.
Kirkwood plays for a team comprised of RCMP and police officers from around the country, called Canada's Finest. She said she joined the team of first responders last year for the 2022 version of the World Police and Fire Games, which were hosted in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The five-year member of Airdrie's RCMP detachment said she's excited to attend the multi-sport games for a second time, adding Canada's Finest won the novice division last year and has moved up to the intermediate division this time around.
“We came first, so we came home with the gold medal, so I’m very excited to go again,” she said. “It’s in Winnipeg, so it’s nice because it’s local and there will be lots of other Canadian police forces and fire forces we’ll be able to interact with, play against, and just make new friends with.”
Kirkwood is the only woman on Canada's Finest. Despite the distance between players (which prohibits them from practicing or playing together outside of this one annual tournament) the team has managed to form a competitive group with a winning mentality.
“I think we all just know how to play, and we all have the same goal of competing hard,” Kirkwood said, when asked what makes Canada's Finest such a strong team. “We have the same goal of winning [and] everyone seems to get along.
“The main group of guys, they’ve gone to these tournaments before and they’ve competed a lot together. I guess they add a few people here and there when the team is short, and I guess they’ve picked the right people…who have the same mindset of going there to compete.”
A native of Chilliwack, B.C., Kirkwood has an extensive hockey background. After playing the sport competitively in B.C. as a teenager, Kirkwood moved to southern Alberta as a Grade 12 student-athlete to attend a now-defunct female hockey academy in the small village of Warner, south of Lethbridge.
From there, Kirkwood went on to play post-secondary hockey at Oswego State University in New York State for four years, where she played for the school's varsity women's team.
A little over a decade ago, Kirkwood decided to enrol in the RCMP's training program in Regina, Sask. Upon completion of the program, she was stationed at Fort McMurray's RCMP detachment for the first five years of her career.
She transferred to Airdrie in 2017, and has been working as a local RCMP constable ever since.
“I always thought I would like to help people and stay active with a dynamic career,” she said. “I didn’t want to do the same thing everyday, so thought the RCMP would be a good fit for me. It turns out it has been.”
When she's not on duty, Kirkwood is still very much involved in hockey. She plays for a women's team in Calgary in her spare time, and is also involved with Airdrie RCMP's annual 'Sirens' charity hockey game against the Airdrie Fire Department in December, which supports the Airdrie 1st Club's Christmas Hamper Program.
Kirkwood described the World Police and Fire Games as a “huge” multi-sport event featuring 8,500 athletes competing across multiple sports. Competing in the intermediate division, she said Canada's Finest will be matched up with teams representing fire departments from Vancouver and Winnipeg, as well as teams called Red Shields Hockey and the Alberta Pirates.
“We’ll be playing against people from all over,” Kirkwood said. “I know in the novice division, there are teams from Ukraine, and there are teams from Australia, Toronto, the LAPD…so it’s basically a huge tournament with tons of people coming internationally to compete. There’s lots of events going on and it’s just a really cool tournament.”
For more information on the 2023 World Police and Fire Games, visit wpfg2023.com
