'We are so excited': Week of peace at WickFest for Ukraine U13 girls' hockey team
The WickFest Female Hockey Festival is back for another season, and one team competing in the tournament is particularly grateful.
The journey to Calgary wasn't easy for the Ukraine U13 girls' hockey team—a daunting 24-hour bus ride to Warsaw, Poland, followed by flights to Canada—56 hours in all.
"We are so happy to be here and we are so excited. We are waiting for (our) first game and I hope it will be such a great time for our girls," said Kateryna Seredenko.
They arrived at the Seven Chiefs Sportsplex on Tuesday morning for their first ever practice as a team.
Arenas all around Ukraine have been bombed, so stepping onto that ice was a special moment.
"(It feels) so good that we woke here and understand that we are in Canada," said Myroslava Reshetnova.
The Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health (CanWaCH) is one of the partners of WickFest and helped get the team over here.
They had to go through the federal government to expedite visas for the group.
They ended up getting them in less than a week.
Now here, the goal is to enjoy themselves and just feel like kids.
"It's pure and simple, fun and enjoyment, taking in the scenes, being tourists, being in a normal place where they don't have to worry about anything, and they've got all of this love surrounding them," said Julia Anderson, CanWaCH CEO.
Hayley Wickenheiser started WickFest 15 years ago.
Since then, it's grown into one of the largest and most celebrated hockey events for young girls in the world.
"These are people just like you and me. They're people and they're children living regular, normal lives that have been just totally upended," Wickenheiser said.
"So, if we can give them a week of peace, I know that it may not help in the grand scheme of things, but just that peace and knowing that people around the world care about them, I think it's really important."
The team's first game is on Thursday.
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