Megan Spooner is a wanted women.
The Prince George goaltender wrapped up her rookie season with the SAIT Trojans women's hockey team in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference and is prepping to tend to the nets in a hockey tournament in Edmonton before joining the Northern Lights double-A ringette team at the 2012 National Ringette League championship, April 9 to 14 in Burnaby and New Westminister.
It's enough to give anyone a big head, but Spooner admitted she's learned to be humble after spending the year as the third-string goalie with the Trojans.
"Back when I played in Prince George I kind of had a really big head because, well Prince George is kind of small and I was always first string, so here it humbled me for sure," said the five-foot goalie. "You've got to do the time right, so I'm just sticking with it, doing all the practices and dry land and next year, hopefully... we'll see what happens."
The 2011 graduate of College Heights secondary school said she chose hockey over ringette mainly because there were more opportunities to play hockey at post-secondary institutions.
Art Lamothe, assistant coach of the Northern Lights ringette team, said they added Spooner to their roster based on her history in the nets during her youth in Prince George.
"She's played all her life growing up ringette and hockey both," said Lamothe. "We've known her as being an outstanding goalie here in Prince George. We thought we needed another goalie in case of injury or sickness or something like that."
Spooner will backup Colleen Moorhouse for the under-19 team, which consists of women from Houston, Terrace, Prince George and Quesnel.
Spooner said her return to ringette to help the Northern Lights team during the provincial best-of-three final a few weeks ago was an interesting experience.
"I haven't played ringette in a while, well, you really need to be ready for anything in ringette," she said, recalling letting in eight goals in a loss in Game 2 against the Lower Mainland team. "They can put the ring anywhere, while in hockey you almost always know where the shot is going to be. In ringette it's completely random. I don't think I was ready."
The Northern Lights team lost the provincial final in three games but qualified for the national championship as the only other B.C. under-19 team since the Thompson-Okanagan region decided not to ice a squad in the age category this year.
Spooner spent most of the hockey season watching the Trojans' veteran goalies Tehnille Gard and Chelsie Lowe, while trying to drink in as much knowledge as she could for when an opportunity presented itself.
"Both of them were really helpful in warming me up to college hockey," said Spooner.
It was a tough year for the Trojans, who finished with 11 wins, 14 losses (two in overtime) and four ties and failed to qualify for the playoffs. Spooner will have the chance to grab a starting role with the Trojans in training camp in the fall since Gard has graduated.
Trojans' head coach Terry Larson said he fully expects the Prince George product to come to camp hungry.
"We had two really good goalies this year so Megan didn't get a ton of playing time, but I'm really looking for her to step up next year," said Larson. "Megan was kind of working on her confidence and getting to the point where she could takeover one of the starting roles for us."
But first Spooner need to find time to fit sleep into her busy April schedule as the College Heights secondary school graduate has exams to prepare for at the end of the month at SAIT in addition to backstopping the Prince George ringette team at the nationals. Before Spooner heads to the Lower Mainland she'll take part in the All-Native Provincial hockey tournament in Edmonton from April 6 to 8 after one of the teams called on her to slide between the pipes.
For Spooner it's all in a day's, or weekend's, work when she laces up the skates whether it's for hockey or ringette.
"I have a hunger for playing games," she said. "I miss the action."
