Picked for shootout in Four Nations Cup championship

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When it came to the shootout to decide the Four Nations Cup international women's hockey tournament earlier this month in Lake Placid, New York, which Canada lost to the U.S., it definitely wasn't unusual to see a Scarborough sniper hop over the boards.

What was surprising, however, was who the player was. Or, more precisely, who the player wasn't.

It wasn't either of Scarborough's more familiar women's hockey veterans who each sport two Olympic gold medals, several world championships, and numerous other achievements - Cherie Piper and Scarborough Walk of Fame inductee Vicky Sunohara.

With the Canadian team specifically using the tournament to season and size up some of its younger players, they weren't even with the team.

Instead, it was just-turned 18-year-old Natalie Spooner, the youngest member of the Canadian team, and called up to the senior team for the very first time.

Spooner, who rose through the West Durham Lightning rep system, is a recent grad this past June of Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute and prior to that Joseph Brant Senior Public School.

She has the amazing distinction of collecting an athlete of the year award every year she went to those two Scarborough schools.

In a phone interview from Ohio State, she told The Mirror she had been to her first senior tryouts last year and was again invited this September "and I guess I just got invited (to the Four Nations Cup)".

At the start of the year she helped Canada earn a silver medal at the U-18 world championships in Calgary. She finished tied for third in scoring with three goals and eight assists in five games.

In March, The Mississauga Chiefs, who play in the top women's league in the country, called her up for their appearance at the Esso Nationals (national club championships) in Prince Edward Island.

In August, she was called up by the national women's U-22 team for a three-game series with the U.S. (which Canada won 2-1), and she contributed three assists.

This fall, she started a full scholarship at Ohio State where she has also found success with 12 points (nine goals, three assists) through her first 10 games with a minus-2 which is not bad, considering the team is 5-9 in a tough division, which includes the defending NCAA champ.

Spooner has already been singled out for Western Collegiate Hockey Association rookie of the week honours.

About the only success she hasn't found lately was in the above-mentioned shootout at the Four Nations Cup.

Shooting third for Canada, she missed.

Then again so did all shooters from both teams until a U.S. sniper finally hit paydirt in the sixth round, to give the U.S. a 3-2 win and its first ever Four Nations Cup title.

Spooner's first point for the senior national team is yet to come, as she was held off the scoresheet for all five games (Canada went 3-2, with its first ever loss to Sweden).

"It was really exciting and it's a great honour to be playing for your country," Spooner said. "There's so many great players on that team that I looked up to when I was younger and I was thrilled to play with them - it was a lot of fun."

She stands to play a lot of hockey this year. Besides Ohio State's hectic schedule, she's also hoping for phone calls from both Canada's U-22 and senior national teams.

Spooner hails from "a hockey family."

"I have three older brothers and they all play hockey," she said. "In the winter we'd have a rink in our backyard so we'd do that, and then my dad would sometimes rent ice and we'd play."