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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, November 30, 2012 · 24 Sports Oakville Beaver By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLEBEAVERSTAFF SPORTS EDITOR:JONKUIPERIJ Phone 905-632-0588 (ext. 294) email sports@oakvillebeaver.com Hockey provides the sweetest sound Kirsten Miller overcame hearing impediment to become national under-18 champion E very day after her figure skating practice at River Oaks Recreation Centre, Kirsten Miller would wander over to the other rink and watch the hockey players. She stood in awe as the players zipped around the ice, watched in amazement as they battled along the boards for the puck. Miller had grown up in a family with a British background so soccer and rugby were the sports she was exposed to as a kid. Her parents wondered where her fascination with hockey came from. One day, Miller turned to her mom and said, "I want to do that." Sherri Miller knew that once her daughter set her mind on something, there was little she could do to stop her. She went to Canadian Tire and bought her daughter a $10 hockey stick. Day after day, Kirsten would practise her shot in the backyard, firing pucks into a plastic net. DRIVEN: Oakville Trafalgar student Kirsten Miller recently helped Ontario Blue win gold at Hockey Canada's national women's under18 championships in British Columbia. Born profoundly deaf, Miller hasn't allowed the impairment to keep her from chasing her hockey dreams. ANDY DEVLIN / HOCKEY CANADA iller had already accomplished a lot just to be able to tell her mom that she wanted to play hockey. Born profoundly deaf, the hearing impairment wasn't discovered until she was a year old. Miller's mom had inquired about auditory verbal therapy -- which helps children with hearing loss to speak -- for her daughter but was told Kirsten's hearing was not good enough; she would have to learn sign language. Perhaps an indication of where her daughter gets her persistence from, Sherri Miller went for a second opinion. Anita Bernstein from VOICE for Hearing Impaired Children agreed to help. With assistance from Bernstein and later therapist Margaret Louwerse, they worked toward the goal of preparing Kirsten for school. Every day, Kirsten worked with her mom on lessons designed to help her listen, interpret sounds and verbalize them. "It's like hearing German," said Sherri. "We hear it, but M we don't know how to interpret it. Because of the lessons, that's how she was able to interpret what she was hearing." But listening and learning to interpret wasn't always the most difficult aspect. Always an active child, it wasn't easy to get Miller to sit still. "It was definitely long hours," Kirsten said. "Mom sitting with me so patiently. I would be up and down in my chair and mom would say, `Just a couple of more minutes.'" "It was almost a method of bribery," says Sherri. "I'd say `Five more minutes and we can go out and kick a soccer ball.'" By kindergarten, the lessons had paid off and Kirsten began school at Brantwood Elementary. In Grade 1, she got a cochlear implant -- an electronic device implanted in the ear which aids hearing by improving sound quality. She did well in school and made friends, mostly boys, playing sports at recess. "I wasn't the deaf kid; I was the athletic kid," Miller says. "Because of sports, I didn't really think much about it." And once she got that first hockey stick, there was no turning back. iller joined the Oakville Hornets house league program when she was eight. An average player by her own account in her first year, she was regularly scoring five goals a game by her second season. Soon, rep teams were asking her to play for them. Even though she was playing soccer at a high level for an Ontario Youth Soccer League team, she decided to focus on hockey. The 16-year-old does stand out on the ice, though it is for her ability. In her rookie season in the Provincial Women's Hockey League, she is third in scoring for the Burlington Barracudas with 10 points in 17 games. "She doesn't give up," said Barracudas captain Melissa Goodwin. "She puts good pressure on the other team, she's a very good offensive player, and she's got a wicked shot." Goodwin said though she was aware of Miller's hearing impairment prior to her joining the team, she said it has never been an issue with her teammates. To notice a difference, you would have to watch very closely. Miller says because of the echoes in an empty arena, it can be difficult See Never, page 25 M Whenever Brittany Smrke watched a hockey game as a kid, her eyes were always focused on the ends of the ice. "The goalies always drew my attention," the 17-year-old said. "The equipment was so awesome. It was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to be a goalie." There was just one thing holding back the forward who started her minor hockey career in the Oakville Hornets organization -- the pressure that came with being the last line of defence for her team. So it was a surprising position Smrke found Goaltender backstops Ontario Blue to surprising gold herself in earlier this month. Having finally made the switch to goalie when she was 11, the Oakville netminder was about to lead Ontario Blue into the gold medal game at the national women's under-18 championships with an opportunity to make history. The team had already made its mark in the tournament by upsetting Ontario Red 7-1 in the semifinals. Ontario Red had won the tournament all seven times it had been held since 2001, while Ontario Blue -- the province's second entry -- had only one medal, a silver in 2009, to its credit. Smrke had reason to be nervous after drawing the starting assignment in the final. She would be facing Manitoba, the only team to beat Ontario Blue in the tournament. Smrke had played well in the round-robin game, stopping 28 shots in the 2-1 loss. And besides, she had long since gotten over her initial fear of being a goalie. "I wasn't nervous," Smrke said. "It was my time and I knew our team was ready. After we beat Red, we wanted to keep the momentum going." Manitoba took leads in the first and second periods, but each time Ontario Blue responded to tie the game. Finally, Ontario Blue took its first lead a minute into the third period. Smrke responded by shutting the door, making seven of her 27 stops to preserve the victory. When Ontario Blue sealed the 4-2 win with a lastsecond empty-net goal, Smrke finally let her emotions get the best of her. "That was overwhelming," said Smrke, who finished the tournament with a .932 save percentage. "We were underdogs the whole tournament, so coming out on top was amazing. See Local, page 25