Director’s Report: Hockey, Leadership and Learning in Hythe, Alberta

On November 5, staff of the Werklund Youth Leadership Centre (WYLC) were joined by three WSE undergrad (BEd) students, as we travelled up north to Grand Prairie for two days of leadership workshops for students in Hythe and to run creative “brain stations” for children and youth in Horse Lake First Nations.

This experience was part of the Werklund YLC Service-Learning Program and provided our undergraduate students with a unique opportunity to learn about their roles as future teachers while engaging with a small, rural community.

We’re happy to report that almost 200 Hythe Regional School students participated in the WYLC leadership workshops. A highlight for the students—and us as well—was the support and involvement in all aspects of the program of six of the NHL’s finest players, who connected and worked closely with the students in several activities:

• The hockey greats (Charlie Simmer, Dennis Polonich, Kelly Kisio,  Mike Rogers,  Pat Elynuik, and Warren Skorodenski) shared their own personal stories about the strengths and challenges of being part of a team; 
• We all worked together to create a symbolic “scene” to show positive and negative team membership.  Dub step music was added to the scenes to create impromptu performances;
• The WYLC also facilitated three creative brain stations during the Horse Lake First Nations breakfast and community hockey games. 45 children and youth, aged 3-18 spent half a day engaging in three activities: The first focused on accessing the right side of the brain by painting with water using special boards that mark brush strokes that slowly vanish. The second was an action-packed game where skills in visual recognition (right brain) and language recall (left brain) have to work together in a race to be the first to finish. The third station was a drawing activity to help young people learn about perspective and 3-D space.

All in all, we had a great time in Hythe and Horse Lake.  We learned a lot and we think the students did too!

Brittany Harker-Martin
Director, Werklund Youth Leadership Centre