Meet Nipissing hockey player, Lo-Ellen Park alum Katie Chomiak

NORTH BAY, Ontario — Katie Chomiak owes her parents a huge debt of gratitude – perhaps even larger than most.

“My first (hockey) memory is from Walden Arena,” said Chomiak, the 20-year-old Nipissing Lakers’ forward already with four goals to her name. “I think I was doing power skating there and I couldn’t stop – so I went off crying and I quit.”

“My parents ended up putting me back in power skating the year after and I was able to learn – thankfully.”

And somewhere along the way, the graduate of Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School who is in her third year of Nursing in North Bay also developed a little more competitive resolve than her very early days on the ice.

“I got to be so competitive with everything that I was doing – almost too competitive,” said Chomiak. “It got to the point where I had to be the first one dressed, the first one to be undressed and out of the change room. I don’t think I even realized what I was doing.”

“It was just sort of who I was.”

By her pre-teens, the talented sniper had begun to gather attention, certainly on a local level, eventually reaching the point of being a key contributor on the Sudbury U18 AA Lady Wolves team that walked away with silver medals in the year in which the Nickel City played host to the Esso Cup.

And like most that ascend to that level, she struggled with all that is encompassed with a recruiting process that unfortunately, all too often, feels far more difficult than enjoyable for the young athletes involved.

“I think at the time that people were making it a lot more stressful than it had to be,” she Chomiak, reflecting on the experience. “Looking back now, I felt a lot of pressure to make a decision earlier, still in grade 11. Looking back, I honestly would have waited until the fall of grade 12.”

In fairness, the flip-side to this coin is simply that all those who want to support the athletes also do not want to see the young men and women left on the outside, looking in, when the university programs finish committing all of their spots.

But as Chomiak and others have come to know, teams will often find a way to make room.

In her case, in particular, the initial commitment was to the Guelph Gryphons, an OUA powerhouse at the time. Realizing that she needed to be closer to home, she switched in her final year of high-school, opting to stay in Sudbury with the Laurentian Voyageurs.

Unfortunately, after seeing her one and only season at L.U. fall victim to Covid, things went from bad to worse; with hockey no longer part of the varsity landscape at Laurentian.

“I had to make a decision as to whether I was going to quit or to move,” said Chomiak. “I didn’t want to go too far. I like being away from home, but I also miss my friends and family and boyfriend back in Sudbury.”

The Nipissing program proved to be just the right fit.

Cracking the all-rookie all-star roster in 2021-2022, Chomiak was just one of the many contributors to a team that would make it all the way to the national final, earning U Sports silver medals in the process.

At the end of this long and winding road, she is thankful for the final destination that she has reached.

“If you’re not enjoying going to practice, if you’re not enjoying the program you’re taking, you’re going to be really miserable,” she said. “It needs to come from within. You have to do it because you really want to be there.”

It may have taken Katie Chomiak an extra year and the support of her parents, back when she first laced them up, to realize that she really wanted to be here – but there’s no question now.

This is an unedited user writing submission. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Best Version Media or its employees.