Rocky View County athlete Marla Wheeler is hoping to “Finnish” with a gold medal at the Junior World Ringette championships next month.
The 21-year-old Dalemead native is preparing to compete at her second junior worlds for Canada’s U21 ringette team. On Oct. 26, she’ll board a plane with her teammates to Espoo, Finland, where the tournament is set to be held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 6.
“I’m very excited. I think we have a really good group heading over,” Wheeler said. “It will be fun. The last time, in 2019, it was here in Canada, so it was a different experience. Being able to go overseas will be different, not having a home crowd, but I’m excited to play on Finnish turf.”
After making the junior national team at the age of 18 for the Junior Worlds in 2019, Wheeler has progressed to become Canada’s captain for this year’s tournament.
Now a senior member and leader of the junior national squad, she said this year will be her final hurrah at the U21 level, and her next objective is to make the senior national team.
According to Wheeler, she learned she was named the team’s captain after the selection process was finalized last May. She said the group has been working hard since then in preparation for the World Juniors in Finland, holding regular training camps throughout the summer.
She said the Canadians’ objective in Finland is to win the Juuso Wahlsten Trophy, which is awarded to the tournament champion. This year's junior tournament will be contested between the Canadians and the host Fins.
“It’s always our goal heading in,” she said. “We want to perform our best and come away with what we want, which is a championship. But it doesn’t just come without all the effort we’ve put into it. It will be nice to hit the ice and see – and show – what we can do.”
While the 2019 junior national team mostly featured players from Ontario and Quebec, this year’s Canada roster is fairly Calgary-heavy, with seven players from the city. Wheeler, who grew up playing for AA ringette teams in Calgary, said she figures the city’s strong ringette community is due to a couple of factors.
“Especially over the last few years, I think it’s partially due to Alberta being more open during COVID,” she reasoned. “The development my teammates from Calgary have been able to have compared to other provinces that were more shut down, I think that’s helped them.
“We also have great coaches – the AA program I grew up playing for here in Calgary is just awesome. Overall, the environment here just helps build up all these athletes coming through the high-performance program.”
Away from her national team duties, Wheeler is also a member of the Calgary RATH in the National Ringette League (NRL) – the highest level available to ringette players in this country. This year marks her third season with the NRL team, though her debut season in 2020 was mostly a dud due to pandemic-caused cancellations.
Wheeler's “actual” first season with the RATH – 2021-22 – ended in perfect fashion, with the team winning the NRL championship on home ice in April.
“It’s a great group and a great program,” she said. “The environment and my teammates make it really easy to develop.”
Off the ice, Wheeler is in her fourth year of a kinesiology degree at the University of Calgary. The 2019 graduate of Chestermere High School no longer lives in Dalemead, instead opting to live in Calgary, closer to campus and RATH practice sessions.
Once they touch down in Finland, Wheeler said the Canadians will play two exhibition games against the host country on Halloween, and then their two-game competition series against the Fins will be on Nov. 3 and 5. They are the only two junior teams competing for the championship.
