Jayna Hefford

Jayna Hefford
Born (1977-05-14) May 14, 1977
Trenton, ON, CAN
Height 5 ft 5 in (165 cm)
Weight 140 lb (64 kg; 10 st 0 lb)
Position Right Wing
Shot Left
Played for Brampton Thunder
National team  Canada
Playing career 1996–2014
Medal record
Competitor for  Canada
Women's ice hockey
Olympic Games
2002 Salt Lake City Tournament
2006 Turin Tournament
2010 Vancouver Tournament
2014 Sochi Tournament
1998 Nagano Tournament
IIHF World Women's Championships
1997 Canada Tournament
1999 Finland Tournament
2000 Canada Tournament
2001 United States Tournament
2004 Canada Tournament
2007 Canada Tournament
2012 United States Tournament
2005 Sweden Tournament
2008 China Tournament
2009 Finland Tournament
2011 Switzerland Tournament
2013 Canada Tournament
Women's 4 Nations Cup
2010 Canada Tournament

Jayna Hefford (born May 14, 1977) is a women's ice hockey player. Hefford played forward for the Canadian women's team at the Winter Olympics in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. Her goal in the gold medal game at the 2002 Winter Olympics was the gold medal winning goal. Hefford was born in Trenton, Ontario, but grew up in Kingston, Ontario.

She also played for the Brampton Thunder in Canadian Women's Hockey League.

Playing career

At the 1994 national under-18 championship, Hefford was part of the gold medal winning Ontario team. In 1995, Hefford participated with the Ottawa Regional Select Team in a series against the U.S. National Under-18 Team.[1] Hefford was the captain of Team Ontario at the 1995 Canada Winter Games.[2]

Toronto Lady Blues

Hefford played for the Toronto Lady Blues women's ice hockey program, which represented the University of Toronto. In the 1997 OWIAA semifinal, Hefford was part of the Lady Blues squad which defeated the Guelph Gryphons by a 4–1 tally. In that game, Hefford accumulated three helpers. In the 1997 OWIAA gold medal game, scored 23 seconds into overtime and she believed that the goal clinched the gold medal for the Lady Blues. A little-known rule denied Hefford and her teammates the Blues second consecutive title. OWIAA league rules indicated that the first five-minute overtime session in a playoff game must be played in its entirety (as a regular period). It was advised that the game would continue after Hefford's goal and York won the game in the second overtime.[3] Hefford joined former University of Toronto student-athlete Heather Moyse as the only University of Toronto graduates to claim a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.[4] She is currently an assistant coach with her former team.[5]

Hockey Canada

At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Hefford ranked second on Team Canada with 12 points (5 goals, 7 assists) in 5 games on the way to her fourth medal (third gold).

In the 2006 tournament, Hefford scored three goals and added four assists to finish third on the team in scoring and Canada again won the gold medal.[6] It was her second gold medal while participating in her third Olympics. She also won a silver medal with the Canadian team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

In the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Hefford scored the game-winning goal in the gold medal game against Team USA with four seconds remaining in the second period.

Hefford has won the gold in six World Championships – 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2007. In 1999 and 2000, Hefford was Team Canada’s leading scorer.[6] Her two third period goals in the 2000 championship game pushed the contest into overtime, allowing Canada the opportunity to win.[6] At the 2005 Esso National Women’s Championships, she was named the Best Forward for Group A.[7]

On January 1, 2010, in Ottawa, Ontario, she was honoured before a game versus Team USA for reaching the 200-game plateau in her Team Canada career in November.[8] She would go on to score the lone shootout goal later that night.[9]

In the first game of the 2011 IIHF Eight Nations Tournament, Hefford registered a hat trick in a 16–0 victory over Switzerland.[10] In the third game of the tournament, she scored two goals in an 11–0 shutout over Slovakia.[11] In an exhibition game versus the United States on August 29, 2011, Hefford scored a power play goal, and then scored twice in the shootout as Canada defeated the United States by a 4–3 tally.[12] In a game versus Russia at the 2012 IIHF Women's World Championship, Hefford registered a four-point performance (two goals, two assists) in a 14–1 victory.[13]

Hefford again played for Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics, earning her fourth gold medal.[14] After 17 years, four Olympic gold medals and multiple world championships, she retired from the national women's team at age 38, after sitting out the 2014-2015 season. She stands second only to Hayley Wickenheiser in all-time games played (267), goals (157) and points (291) for Canada. The pair are the only two Canadian women to have played in all five Olympic women's hockey tournaments starting in 1998, winning four gold and one silver medal. They are among only five athletes (with teammate Caroline Ouellette) to win gold in four consecutive Winter Games. Hefford also appeared in 12 of 16 women's world hockey championships earning seven gold medals.[15]


Brampton Thunder

In the National Women's Hockey League, she played for the Brampton Thunder. She was the league's all-time leading goal scorer with 252 goals (1998–99 to 2006–07). In a seven-year stretch from 2000–01 to 2006–07, she won or co-won five NWHL scoring titles and won five NWHL goal-scoring titles. The only years in which she did not win were 2001–02 and 2005–06 – the two years in which she missed most of the club campaign because she was away winning a gold medal with Canada's Olympic team.

In 2007–08, she led the new Canadian Women's Hockey League with 26 goals in 27 games for the Brampton Canadette-Thunder. She was named the Canadian Women's Hockey League Most Valuable Player of the 2007–08 CWHL season, an award voted on by the league's six team captains. In addition, she was also a CWHL Central All-Star. Despite winning CWHL Top Scorer of the Month honours on four separate occasions (September, November, December, January), she lost the Angela James Bowl scoring race by just three points (58 points to Jennifer Botterill's 61 points). It marked the first time since 1999–2000 that in a year when Hefford played a full season, she did not win her league scoring race.

In 2008–09, she won the Angela James Bowl after scoring 69 points in 28 games. She set new league records with 69 points, 44 goals, 11 power-play goals, six shorthanded goals and seven hat tricks. She is the first player in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League to record 100 career points.[16] She recorded the record-setting point milestone on January 17, 2009 in a win over the Montreal Stars.

In 2009–10, she was absent from the Brampton Thunder for most of the season due to the centralization of Canada's women's hockey Olympic team. After Canada's win in Vancouver, she returned to participate in the Clarkson Cup and had a goal and an assist in Brampton's semi-final win over the Montreal Stars. Brampton lost to the Minnesota Whitecaps in the final.

On January 18, 2011, the Thunder competed against the Montreal Stars at the Invista Centre in Kingston, Ontario. This is team captain Jayna Hefford's hometown and she scored a goal in front of her closest friends, family and fans. In addition, her number 15 was raised to the rafters of the Invista Centre on behalf of the Kingston Area Minor Hockey Association. As of 2012, no sweaters bearing Hefford’s number will be used in Kingston Minor Hockey.[17]

Personal

Hefford was raised by her parents Larry and Sandra along with her brother Mike; she calls Kingston, Ontario her home town. She began playing hockey around the age of six.[5] She is mother to a daughter Isla and a son Lachlan [18] whom she raises with her partner, former Team USA Olympian and Canadian Women's Hockey League co-founder Kathleen Kauth.[19][15] Both have also served on the coaching staff for the Toronto Lady Blues women's ice hockey program under head coach Vicky Sunohara.[5]

Hefford is a national spokesperson for the Canadian Hockey Association's Initiation Programme. In 2009, she set up a charity golf tournament, the Jayna Hefford Links 4 Life Golf Classic, in July 2009. The tournament raised $15,000 for the cancer and palliative care undertaken at Kingston's university hospitals.[20]

Awards and honours

References

  1. ↑ http://www.goodasgoldopen.com/team_hefford_jayna.html#pagetop
  2. ↑ Who's Who in Canadian Sport, Volume 4, p.193, Bob Ferguson, Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd., Markham, ON and Allston, MA, ISBN 1-55041-855-6
  3. ↑ http://www.whockey.com/team/blues/article/The_Varsity_970225.txt
  4. ↑ "University of Toronto Varsity Blues - FORMER BLUES HOCKEY STAR IS GOLDEN ONCE AGAIN". University of Toronto.
  5. 1 2 3 Jurewicz, Chris (September 10, 2015). "A legend says goodbye: Jayna Hefford retires from Canada's National Women's Team as one of the all-time greats". Hockey Canada. Hockey Canada. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 Canadian Gold 2002, p. 118, Andrew Podnieks, Fenn Publishing Company Ltd, Bolton, Ontario, Canada, 2002
  7. ↑ http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/11111/la_id/2.htm
  8. ↑ http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/sports/story.html?id=ff26c70d-76ff-446b-901c-ec688eee5ad4
  9. ↑ http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100101/sports/hko_women_us_canada
  10. ↑ http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/75138/la_id/1/game_id/172931/season_id/172882/ss_id/170713/
  11. ↑ http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/75138/la_id/1/game_id/172973/season_id/172882/ss_id/170713/
  12. ↑ http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/173932/la_id/1.htm
  13. ↑ http://stats.iihf.com/Hydra/271/IHW271A10_74_4_0.pdf
  14. ↑ "Canada names women’s Olympic hockey team - OlympicTalk". OlympicTalk.
  15. 1 2 "Hefford, Apps, Ward retire from Canadian women's hockey team". CBC Sports. The Canadian Press. September 10, 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  16. ↑ http://www.ontariohockey.com/story/26/Female%20Hockey/3283/Brampton_Thunder_star_hungers_for_Olympic_competition.aspx
  17. ↑ http://www.cwhl.ca/news.asp?id=50
  18. ↑ "Hefford enjoying motherhood". The Kingston Whig-Standard.
  19. ↑ "Four-time Olympic gold medallist Jayna Hefford enjoying family life - Canadian Women's Hockey League - Pointstreak Sites". May 11, 2014.
  20. 1 2 http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-hockey/athletes/jayna-hefford_ath1012631Et.html
  21. ↑ http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php?ci_id=11737&la_id=1&ss_id=22220&player_id=2013
  22. ↑ "SI.com". CNN.
  23. ↑ http://www.bramptonsports.ca/inductee.php?pk=97
  24. ↑ "Team Alberta captures seventh national title". Hockey Canada. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  25. ↑ Collins gem Hockey Facts and Stats 2009–10, p.544, Andrew Podnieks, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd, Toronto, Canada, ISBN 978-1-55468-621-6
  26. ↑ Collins gem Hockey Facts and Stats 2009–10, p.545, Andrew Podnieks, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd, Toronto, Canada, ISBN 978-1-55468-621-6
  27. ↑ "2006 Esso Women’s National Championship Award Winners Announced". Hockey Canada. March 20, 2006. Retrieved April 9, 2010.

External links

Preceded by
Jennifer Botterill (2008)		 Angela James Bowl
2009 		Succeeded by
Sabrina Harbec (2010)
Preceded by
Jennifer Botterill (2001)		 IIHF World Women's Championships Best Forward
2004, 2005 		Succeeded by
Hayley Wickenheiser (2007)
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