Hanna Bunton on the realities of being a women’s hockey star

I feel badly asking you some of these questions, because you and other professional female players hear them all the time. Is it tiring to repeat these same messages about things that need to change and never seem to?
Yeah, I think so. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something to change. [Laughs.] Maybe it’s a little bit tiring but if we don’t keep having these conversations, we’re probably going to go backwards. And I think having these conversations maybe inspires other people to have these conversations and it reaches different people than it’s reached in the past. We want to be having these conversations or we’re not going to see the change.

Well said. Growing up in Belleville, how’d you get interested in the game?
I think I started playing when I was about four or five. The Belleville Bulls were the OHL team that were there at the time and we had season tickets, and I would go with my dad and my grandfather. It was a pretty special excursion, every Wednesday and Saturday were their home games and it was something I always looked forward to. I had a little Bulls bag I would bring. I had a stuffed bull and a jersey. I used to even take stats at the game. So I don’t know, maybe I was more of a nerd watching it, but it was such a fun experience.

Did you aspire to be a Bull?
Yeah, I was always thinking, I want to play and I want to be as good as these guys are. I remember looking up to them, thinking they were the coolest people in the world.

You also played basketball and ran track competitively. Why did you choose hockey ultimately?
When I got older, I saw that hockey could probably take me somewhere.

Where did you think it could take you?
There was a team called the East Coast Selects and they would scout and find players in Ontario. I ended up going to Europe in both Grade 7 and 8 with them for a summer travel experience. We went to three different countries each year and there were girls from all over Ontario and a couple from the U.S. That felt like the first time that I had been noticed from somewhere outside of Belleville and I thought, Oh, this is pretty cool, hockey could take me somewhere.

There was a girl named Jackie Jarrell, who’s from Belleville as well. She’s about 10 years older than me and she went to Mercyhurst and played Division 1 hockey there. So I saw her and thought, Oh wow, I can get a scholarship somewhere.

My last year of midget, I was offered to play in the junior league with Whitby and I decided I was going to stay back and play a year in Belleville. [Editor’s note: With the Bearcats that season, Bunton put up 94 points in 51 games]. I was in Grade 10 and I think it was probably one of the better decisions in my hockey career, because I ended up getting noticed by Team Canada that year. I was able to be a dominant player in Belleville as opposed to going to Whitby and maybe struggling to find myself.

Hanna Bunton on the realities of being a women’s hockey star
Source: Healthy Lifestyle