In Ms Eisenberg’s classroom, I met with senior Lili Guilbaut during Mustang block, her usual hangout spot so she can finish last-minute homework and talk with friends away from the crowded senior alcove.  I knew Guilbault from mutual friends, but I had never had a one on one conversation with her before. I asked her basic questions about herself such as how many sibling she has, how long she has lived in Falls Church, but her eyes began to sparkle and the passion in her voice was evident when I asked her about hockey.

She is the shortest in her immediate family, standing at 5’11, and she plays defense for her club team and the Mason team. Guilbault, a native Canadian, has been playing ice hockey since seventh grade and ironically began playing while her family lived in Georgia, and not while she lived in Canada. Guilbault wouldn’t trade her sport for anything else, and hopes to continue to play walk-on hockey in college at Queens University in Canada.

Growing up in Canada, hockey was always an extremely large part of the sports culture and she grew up with a love for the game.

“My 2nd year playing I was in GA we didn’t have enough people so we had to practice with the older boys,” Guilbault said. “They kind of picked on us, it wasn’t fun and I almost quit.”  

However, she moved from Georgia to Falls Church during her freshman year of highschool and began playing for the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Ice Dogs hockey team.

“My mom said I needed to play for one more season before I could quit,” Guilbault said. “My travel team [the NOVA Ice Dogs] is so supportive of each other and we want each other to succeed and I am really glad I didn’t quit.”  

It was quite a change from Georgia to Falls Church, but having her teammates and being able to continue to play hockey helped ease the transition greatly. Having club hockey practice five days a week and between 1 to 5 games during the weekend leaves Guilbault with little free time and little time to socialize.  Many weekends are spent on road trips with her fellow club teammates to games across the east coast. Last year, the furthest she traveled was for the National Qualifiers in Miami, Florida, which her team ended up qualifying for. Last year the NOVA Ice Dogs were ranked 32 in the country, which shows that their hard work truly does pay off.

I know next to nothing about hockey and as Guilbault explains the game to me, her eagerness to explain why she loves it so much made me, someone who can barely ice skate, want to play.  

“It is a really fast game,” Guilbault said. “It can always go either way, which keeps it exciting and makes you stay on your feet.”  

I was surprised to hear that hockey players rotate in and out with usually 40 second to minute-long shifts.  You give it your all for a minute and then you are rewarded with a short rest and before you know it, you are back in again.  The adrenaline rush and fast pace keep hockey players like Lili energized and motivated to keep playing.

Guilbault also plays for the Mason hockey team, which is considered a club because there are students from other high schools in the area on the team.  I did not even know Mason had a hockey team, but Guilbault explained that there were around ten other Mason students that were a part of it.  As only one of two girls on the team, I asked her if this affected her experience on the ice any different.  She said that while playing, she didn’t notice any difference in the way people treated her because they were focused on the game.

“You don’t change in the same locker room and so there is kind of a layer of separation, so you don’t really know teammates as well,” Lili admitted, however.  

She has gotten closer with the other girl on the team, Danielle Imhoff from Edison High School, and enjoys being a part of the Mason hockey team as well as her club team. The regular Mason hockey season goes from November to February and the spring season goes from March to June.  

While she is not out on the ice, Lili balances her homework (which she has a lot of as an IB Diploma candidate) with various other interests.  Although hockey is her number one passion, she also enjoys doing puzzles, her secret guilty pleasure.  

“I have an obsession with jigsaw puzzles, I have to limit myself,” she joked.  

Additionally, Guilbault states that she is very close with her older sister and considers her to be her best friend.  She wants to go to college in Canada so she can be near her and the rest of her family and be back in her home country.  She loves having an older sister because she is able to share her experiences with someone who is around her age and is able to understand what she is going through. Although she has lost touch with a lot of her friends from Canada when she lived there when she was younger, she is still very close with her cousins.  She and her family go back to Canada quite frequently to visit them.

One thing that I learned about Guilbault has passion in everything she does from hockey to school work and that she is an extremely hard worker.  Her dedication has not gone unnoticed by her friends and fellow classmates.

“[Lili] always gives all her effort into everything she does,” senior Harshini Ravi said, a friend of Guilbault. “She is one of the hardest working people I know, I don’t know how she does it especially since she is so busy with hockey.”

Her persistence to keep playing hockey despite some obstacles in her way demonstrates her courage and her commitment to everything she does.  As the bell rang signaling the beginning of third block, our interview drew to a close and I left knowing more about hockey than before and that Guilbault’s strong work ethic would lead her far.