New book series shows girls hockey is a game for everyone, everywhere

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When Jenna McCoubrey Prestidge was a little girl there were two things she loved most in the world: being a farm kid and playing hockey.

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Raised on a beef farm in Balaclava, Jenna was the youngest of three kids in her family and with two older brothers; she was also the only girl.

“I had the most magical childhood,” Jenna said recently in an interview with Ontario Farmer.

Like most farm kids, Jenna spent her days helping with the animals and tending to her garden. She showed cattle at the fall fair and loved learning the tricks of the trade from her dad.

Her favourite animal was a sheep named Sadie who never left her side.

“It would break out, jump fences and show up at the spring door,” Jenna said. “I can still remember that little sheep face at the door waiting for me.”

When Jenna was about eight-years-old, her father asked her if she would like to trade in her figure skates for hockey skates.

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Hockey was an important part of her family’s culture and if the boys could play, her dad said she could too.

Jenna grew up in the early 1990s when girls’ hockey looked a lot different than it does today and that’s putting it mildly.

Owen Sound, which was the closest centre to Balaclava, had one girls’ team at the time but it was only in its second year.

“It was a U-19 and since I was eight-years-old, I was the youngest player on the team. I had teammates who were 17, 18 and 19,” Jenna said.

By the age of 16, Jenna was made captain of the team now known as the Ice Hawks. And by the time she was 18 the league had added three more teams.

“We had amazing women like Hayley Wickenheiser who were showcasing the game so eventually more teams grew,” Jenna said.

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Jenna took a break from hockey during university to play competitive field lacrosse but when school was over, she felt the itch to get back on the ice.

It was her dad who encouraged her to travel abroad and play in a premier league in Germany amongst women who had been to the Olympics.

The experience was incredible but it also took a toll.

Jenna said after a year in the league she “lost the fun” of the game, so she made the decision to return to Ontario and take a break.

Her time off the ice didn’t last long, though, and sooner than later Jenna joined a high-level league in Cambridge.

By this point in her life hockey wasn’t the only priority. Getting married, starting a family, all of this was happening too.

“I would have a baby, take some time off and then go back,” she said.

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Just like the family she grew up in, Jenna and her husband, filmmaker Taylor Prestidge, have two boys, James and Leo, and their youngest, Ellie Rose, is a girl.

In 2021, the family moved back to Jenna’s hometown and built a house on her parents’ original farmland.

A couple of years later, Jenna attended the Hockey Day in Canada celebration held in Owen Sound.

She was thrilled to see that part of the festivities included a game featuring teams from the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association.

The arena was packed and electric with enthusiasm that day. Most exciting was the sea of young girls holding up homemade signs cheering for the female hockey players.

Jenna said she looked around and couldn’t believe what was happening. It was a glaring contrast to the arenas she played in growing up, which were usually void of fans or applauding parents.

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Later that night, still feeling the buzz of the day, Jenna searched her home library for a storybook featuring a girl hockey player. She was disappointed to see that out of the 20 hockey books on the shelf, only one told the story of a girl player.

“I laid in bed that night and thought, where are all the girls?” Jenna said.

A quick Google search confirmed that girls are rarely, if ever, the subject of books dedicated to the topic of hockey.

It was a crushing realization, but Jenna figured if there weren’t any already written, she’d simply have to write one herself.

And just like that the idea for Rosie the Hockey Player came to life.

“I thought I’d start writing a book for my daughter using my own experiences, but then this whole book series flew out of me,” Jenna said.

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Over the course of a few months, Jenna created six books that featured protagonist Rosie going through the ups and downs of being a young female hockey player.

Not only did she draw inspiration from her personal hockey journey, she also pulled influences from the rural landscape around her and her childhood on the farm.

In book two of the series, Rosie and her teammates compete in their first tournament of the season charmingly called The Harvest Cup.

Meanwhile, the third book, The Candy Cane Classic, is the real-life story of the annual hockey game that’s been held at the McCoubrey farm for the past 40 years.

By November 2023, Jenna had self-published three of the books in the Rosie series, releasing them on Amazon and hoping for the best.

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Within a month of publication, almost 1,000 copies had been sold domestically and internationally.

“I didn’t even know what to do. It just seemed to explode!” Jenna said.

The winning streak continued when the Professional Women’s Hockey League began playing games in January 2024 shining an even bigger light on the sport.

“It’s night and day compared to when I grew up. I am so proud of where women’s hockey is now,” Jenna said.

As for Rosie the Hockey Player, Jenna is proud of that too. Five of the six books in the series are currently available and the sixth will be published shortly.

The goal is to show the world that girls’ hockey is a game for everyone, everywhere.

“I hope Rosie has more experiences as we go forward and I hope I can continue to make a difference in the sport,” Jenna said.

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WOMEN IN HOCKEY

• In the early 1990s, around 15,000 girls played hockey in Canada.
• The first ever International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s Championship was held in 1990.
• Female hockey was played at the Olympic Winter Games for the first time in 1998.
• The Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team won four consecutive gold medals in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014.
• The Professional Women’s Hockey League was formed in 2023 with six teams and 138 active roster spots.
• In 2024, more than 89,000 girls and women play hockey across Canada.
• Female-only leagues are now active in and around major cities in every province.

(Sources: Hockey Canada and PWHL)

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