Putting the construction paper and glue into team building and bonding

The funny thing about tradition is that eventually it gets to a point where no one remembers how it started. It is just something that has to be done because it has been done before and its origins become a year-by-year game of broken telephone.
That’s the case for the women’s hockey team’s tradition that is performed every year at the Theresa Humes Invitational tournament. Every year, players pick a teammate’s name out of a hat in a situation emulating any Secret Santa at a workplace. The twist is, on top of getting the person a gift, you also have to make a poster based around that person using pictures, drawings, whatever it is that person wants to use.
The tradition itself is not the issue – it is consistent from year to year. However its origins are like navigating the icy paths on Mont Royal: a slippery slope.
Ask one member of the Stingers’ alumni and you are told it must have been during so-and-so’s time. Ask that person, and they don’t know either. When those two people combine for the last 10 years in Concordia’s program, you are hard pressed to find someone else who may know.
But, never fear. Les Lawton, the team’s coach now in his 26th season, must surely know when the tradition started. But not even he can be sure when it started.
“I don’t know when it started, to tell you the truth,” Lawton said.
“I think we’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been coaching. It started as a team builder our coaching staff came up with and the players jumped on it. It’s something that has become a tradition with the team and the players have a lot of fun doing it.”
The posters are lined along the stands, and show not only the creativity of the player who makes the poster, but the lives behind the mask of the Stinger player it is for, and adds a human element to the player on the ice.
“It let’s you get to know the person more and how they grew up,” said third-year Stingers forward Donna Ringrose.
The tradition is something the players are all interested to see, however, for rookies it could be a rude awakening to how seriously some veterans take it. “Usually rookies have no idea what to do,” said Ringrose. “They think it’s a piece of cardboard with three pictures on it, but when they come into the arena and see the vets come in with plastic bags over their posters, they think ‘Oh my God, I think I screwed up.'”
Fans, parents, and even the visiting teams of the tournament take a look at the posters of the players they may be facing off against.
“Other players may not like you because of what you do on the ice, but then they see you on a poster smiling with your friends and they might not think you’re so bad.”
One visiting player, however, knows all about the tradition. Ottawa Gee Gee’s goaltender Jessika Audet is a former Stinger. Audet, who is in her second season in Ottawa, played for Concordia from 1996-2000, and says she wasn’t surprised to see the tradition continue.
“It’s a fun thing to do,” Audet said. “It’s a team bonding experience. You pick a name out of a hat and you have to figure out who did your poster and who was nice enough to represent you that way on the poster. Everyone worked on doing something special, but also wanted to see who did theirs.”
“It’s great for teams to do something like that together and it’s nice to see the tradition is still alive.”
Audet also had fond memories of the Theresa Humes tournament.
“There is so much history around the tournament,” she said. “I’m glad I got to play as a Stinger in this tournament and it’s an honour to still come back and play. Before the CIS, the Theresa Humes was the one tournament of the year and I was there for that time.”