Sienna Derganc-Renette wasn’t missing an opportunity like this.
The Grade 1 student at St. Francis Catholic Elementary School in North Bay is usually one busy little bee, what with dancing, Sparks, swimming, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing and soccer on the schedule during the calendar year.
Not to mention North Bay Battalion games with her mom, Tamara Derganc.
“Now that it’s the playoffs, we’re there all the time,” Tamara said.
But Sunday, Derganc-Renette joined her mom at the mall, not for shopping, but to get her hands on some prime athletic hardware — Genevieve Lacasse’s Olympic women’s hockey gold medal.
“It’s really heavy,” said Derganc-Renette, who watched Lacasse’s Olympic teammates in action.
She wasn’t the only one stopping by.
Young and experience.
Hockey player or not.
It didn’t matter as people from various backgrounds stopped by in front of The Escape Movement at Northgate Mall to get an autograph, handle the Olympic gold medal or offer words of congratulations to Lacasse, a Montreal native, who stuck around well past her scheduled time.
Rod Coles, out shopping with his wife, found out she was there by fluke. That didn’t stop him from examining the Olympic gold medal and offering thanks for an exciting game, one which the Canadians trailed 2-0 for 56 minutes and 34 seconds before a furious rally in the final few moments of regulation produced overtime.
From there, Marie-Philip Poulin, who scored the tying goal with 55 seconds left in the third, potted the winner 8:10 into overtime.
“It was probably the most exciting game I’ve watched at any level,” Coles said. “It was certainly better than the men’s game.”
Lacasse, at 24 the youngest of three goalies on the Canadian Olympic team, wasn’t on the ice for the final, but she was part of the group that celebrated afterward and set up camp in Calgary over the last year in preparation for the tournament, which included travelling across Alberta to play boys midget-AAA hockey teams.
In one month, she slept in her own bed less than half a dozen times.
“Some of the girls who were through the residency before said this year was probably the toughest,” Lacasse said.
But worth it.
Lacasse’s life has changed since returning from the 2014 Sochi Games and she had enjoyed sharing her experiences.
A product of a military family, Lacasse was invited to her old elementary school in Kingston to make an appearance.
Recently, she dropped by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to visit.
And Sunday, she was in North Bay where her brother Alexandre and sister-in-law Jenn are stationed with the Royal Canadian Air Force, have been since 2009. Plus there is little Ethan, Lacasse’s nephew, and The Escape Movement at Northgate Mall, where she made her appearance last weekend and a store whose motto “goes along perfectly with how I live my life.”
The adventure continues with another trip next week, when Lacasse, who also spent time in Petawawa as a kid, joins Team Canada captain Caroline Ouellette and a dozen wounded veterans for a trip to Resolute in Canada’s Far North and a ski trip to the North Pole as part of a True Patriot Love campaign to raise awareness of the needs of Canadian veterans and their families.
“The whole trip is going to be super special,” she said. “I’m excited to go.”
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