The future of female hockey players take on the annual Wickfest Festival

WICKFEST/ WEBSITE

WickFest, the annual hockey festival that celebrates young female athletes and their passion for the game, visited the North Surrey Sport & Ice Complex from January 31 to February  2, 2025.

This is the thirteenth year that Surrey has hosted the festival. The weekend welcomed female athletes from across Canada and the United States, offering off-ice wellness workshops and on-ice sessions with Olympic gold medalist and event founder, Hayley Wickenheiser.

Wickenheiser started WickFest in 2010 after the Olympics, aiming to grow and expand the female game. Over the last 15 years, 40,000 female athletes from across Canada and the United States have participated in this festival.

 “There wasn’t much happening in growth [in female hockey],” said Wickenheiser. “[WickFest is] my way to give back and leave our legacy for the next generation.”

Theresa Philips, director of finance and hockey operations for WickFest, said this festival plays a massive role in a young girls’ development in hockey, allowing them to have the chance to develop new skills on and off the ice from their favourite female athletes. 

WickFest brought forward Meghan Agosta, a Canadian women’s ice hockey player, to interact with the girls.

“There’s no big female [festival] like this,” said Philips. “You don’t get what we get with the clinics and workshops and the exposure to the Olympians,” she added. “Bringing in all these role models, and then our clinics and workshops are run by females too. So it’s this ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ kind of mentality.”

Julianna Stonehouse, manager of strategic partnerships for the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH), brought their new initiative, FuelHER, to WickFest to raise awareness for the health of these young female athletes. 

Stonehouse said it is important to empower girls and localize that global connection that the world needs more than ever.

"The power of sport is a unifying experience for girls around the world,” said Stonehouse. “Through the workshops we’ve offered throughout WickFest, we’ve seen the girls make those connections, and come to understand that teamwork, leadership and empowerment don’t stop with the final buzzer.”

Wickenheiser said that for these young girls, WickFest is more than a festival; it’s an event that brings people together to support something far greater than the sport itself.

“I have a lot of parents that say this [festival] is amazing,” she added.

For Philips, to have festivals like WickFest it gives girls the opportunities that boys in sports have access to.

“My son always had amazing opportunities with hockey, and [when] my girls started playing, they did not have the same opportunity,’’ said Philips. “How can I fix that? Because as an adult female, I had tons of opportunities, but these young girls didn’t.”

Philips met Wickenheiser at an event in 2015, and they talked about hockey and how defeating it is to see the direction girls’ hockey is going. Wickenheiser invited Philips to bring a team to WickFest, and the rest is history.

“I’m doing my dream job,” said Philips, “[giving an] opportunity to provide something to girls that I didn’t get.”

WickFest will be held in Milton, Ontario next year and hopes to expand to the United States. Wickenheiser said that by having sponsors like Gatorade and Canadian Tire on board, these loyal sponsors are helping spread the word about the festival.

“It’s an epic festival of hockey.”