It was two transitions that brought Cochrane’s Paige Magnusson to play for the SAIT Trojans womens’ hockey team.
The first came when she was 14 years old and switched to hockey from ringette, which she’d been playing since she was five. The second came two years ago when she transferred to SAIT from Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton.
“I switched to hockey because I thought there would be more of an opportunity to play,” said Magnusson. “There’s quite a ringette community in Calgary, but it ends as soon as you finish high school.”
Being recruited to play for Grant MacEwan came as a surprise to Magnusson, who played all of her minor hockey in Cochrane and was cut from the Midget AAA team in High River.
“I never expected to play university (hockey),” she said. “I was scouted by Grant MacEwan at the Midget A provincials in Edmonton. It was a fluky thing because most teams don’t scout from teams that low.”
The 20-year-old graduate of Bow Valley High School is currently studying energy asset management, which she hopes translates to a career in the oil or gas industries. Now in her second year with the team, she was part of last year’s championship team.
“It was a really cool experience,” she said. “I’ve never won anything that big before, and we got our championship rings. It’s really cool to say we won the league championships, but now you want more.”
This season is more of a growing year for both the team, which is 2W-2L-1OTL-3T this season, and Magnusson.
“Our team’s pretty different this year,” said Magnusson.
