Sami Jo Small.
Mississauga Chiefs goalie Sami Jo Small has proposed that the CWHL champion play the winner of the Western Women's Hockey League in a new title match to take place March 21.
File photo
Mississauga Chiefs star Sami Jo Small — who helped found the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) two years ago so that she and her teammates could continue to play the game they love — has taken her passion one step further.
Small, who was born in Winnipeg but plays in Ontario, has created a true national championship for women's hockey by having the CWHL champion play the winner of the Western Women's Hockey League in a new title match to take place March 21.
The long-time goaltender on the women's national hockey team, five-time world champion and a gold medal winner in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin in 2006, has even helped secure television coverage for the new championship, on the cable sports television network TSN.
About the only things not determined for the championship are where it will be played and, of course, which teams will get there. The two two teams from each league will compete in the four-team weekend challenge.
The Chiefs are hoping Small can backstop them into the game she is establishing.
In 2007, Small and her Chiefs' teammate Jennifer Botterill were among those who set up the CWHL.
"It does open up a new area for us to run our own single national championship," Small told The Winnipeg Free Press. "It's a little bit of a learning process because we've never hosted a championship like this before but we're slowly figuring it out," she added.
Small and her Chiefs teammates will be in Cobourg this weekend to play a league game as part of the 2009 Winter Classic tournament hosted by the West Humberland Girls' Hockey Association.
Tomorrow at 2 p.m., the Chiefs take on their arch-rivals the Brampton Canadette- Thunder at the Cobourg Memorial Arena. The same teams played last year and attracted 500 spectators.
jstewart@mississauga.net