I thought she was going to whip up a frenzy of girl power in front of a crowd of 250 teenage female hockey players. She had the audience to really Beyonce-it with a generous helping of hash-tag equality movement, but one of the country's greatest women's hockey players - a gold and silver Olympic medal winning dynamo - didn't go all 'hot-button'. She kept it as cool as ice. And still got the message across.
Hockey terms to sound impressive -She had a chance for a power play, to face-off with an audience of 16-18 year old girls and tell them that there's too many men on the ice. She could have said linesmen should be called lines-people, and defensemen should be re-named D-people. She could have even opted to start a revolution in the head-gear world by calling on the young women to demand shelmets not helmets.
But she didn't. She didn't' have to.
Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Geraldine Heaney let her own experience and skills do the talking. She is a leader by example.
In a measure of either male or female milestones, Heaney is an athlete of considerable prowess. During her Hockey Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 2013, she jokingly apologized to her husband for all the ribbing he takes from the guys at his work because his wife has a harder slapshot than he does. And she does.
She has talent - oodles of it. She has the hardware, accolades and stories to prove it. And it was that experience that captivated a room full of young female hockey players inside the Bold Center's Devon Room on Friday night during the weekend's Provincial Midget B Female championships in Lac La Biche.
She didn't have to raise a flag to rally the troops. The young players in the room were already in the fight. They are on their way to make changes and continue to push for their own opportunities, goals and rewards. And when they succeed, so will their communities and society around them.
When Heaney started skating on a female team in 1980, she was 13 years old. She was also one of only 9,000 players in all of Canada in an organized female hockey program.
"Now there are more than 80,000 young female players," Heaney said through a beaming smile at the start of her short presentation to the crowd.
That's it. Enough said.
Like her gritty and tough playing style, and her impressive goal-scoring statistics over 18 seasons and 1,000 games in the Ontario Women's Hockey Association, plus more than a decade and a half of national and international play, she saw opportunities, created chances and most times capitalized - on the ice ... and off.
The young girls watching the hockey legend didn't need to be hit over the head with a pink "Equality-Now" protest sign to see what can be done when the effort is there. For the young girls in the audience on Friday night, the unspoken message from Heaney was simple.
She didn't have to say it. She showed it to them.
