Valerie Lamenta opens up about winning the award and the Gryphon community
Rebecca Thompson: Congrats on winning CIS player of the year! What does this award mean to you?
Valerie Lamenta: It was very unexpected; it was very appreciated. I think what it means to me is just… I think of it more as a team award… because I know I couldn’t have had the results I had without the girls playing in front of me so well. They certainly made my life easier; they made me look good, they were basically taking all my rebounds and leaving me the easy shots, so that really helped. I think it’s really an homage of the team that we had.
RT: Having spent last season on the bench, how have you overcome challenges or setbacks in your hockey career to get to this point?
VL: I think it was more a matter of me being patient, and just waiting for my time… They had been completely honest with me when I came in. I knew the situation I was in with Steph being a clear cut number one starter, and she 100 per cent deserved it. I think I didn’t necessarily see it as a setback, it was more of a learning experience for me to just learn from her and see how she communicated with the team, how she controlled the play and I fed off how she was doing. That made my transition just a little bit smoother this year when she ended up getting injured.
RT: Do you have a pre-game ritual or routine?
VL: I have a lot of them, I’ll play volleyball with one of my roommates… We’ll always find a little corner just to do that. [I] tape my stick every time I play—I actually don’t tape it, I have one of the girls tape it because I have no idea how to do it. Then we come together as a team, we always have our warm-up, and then, after that we’ll have a little pump-up cheer. So it’s just a bunch of little different things that you sort of don’t remember necessarily, it just becomes a habit.
RT: How have your teammates supported you through this journey?
VL: They’ve been the greatest, they’ve been so happy for me, they’ve been so proud. I think that their support is what made me the happiest. I knew I could always count on them, so this has really been great, and really heartwarming to see.
RT: Do you see a bright future for this team?
VL: I do. Yes, we are losing a lot of our key players, but we’re keeping the majority of our team and we’re still decently young so I think we’ll be able to have a really decent and very competitive team for the next couple years. Even if we were to lose a lot of players, I know that there is a culture… of excellence [here] and it definitely comes through every single team that comes through every single year.
RT: How do you balance hockey and school?
VL: I am sort of used to it, because with cégep I was playing hockey there as well. I think that it actually helps having the two, because I know I have to be disciplined. It helps keep me on track, if I only have an hour here I actually do need to do work and I can’t laze around and do nothing. I think balancing the two is just making sure you stay organized, stay on top of things… try not to get ahead of yourself and get overwhelmed by the bigger picture.
RT: How would you describe your time as a Gryphon so far?
VL: It’s been completely awesome. It’s been an honour and I really feel like it’s a community, it’s a family. Not even just our hockey team, but all the Gryphon sports teams, all the support we’ve gotten from the other teams, all the support we’ve gotten from the junior players—the kids around here—and a bunch of people you see that it makes them proud. So I think it’s really being part of a community, part of a family.
RT: Do you have any advice for young aspiring athletes?
VL: I think it’s just… never settle, just always try to push yourself to that next level and once you have reached one of your goals, you know … that’s the time to set a new one right away and to just keep pushing yourself and you work hard and people do notice it so never take what you’re doing for granted.