By ALISON KORN, QMI AGENCY
\nThere\u2019s a little bit of the Memorial Cup in the fledgling Canadian women\u2019s cricket team. Fifteen-year-old Aussie Mikaela Turik is the youngest member of the Canadian women\u2019s squad. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, to a Canadian dad and Australian mom, she was the top scorer in two games against the U.S. this week. Mikaela\u2019s grandfather, Frank Turik, was a Memorial Cup winner in 1945 with St. Mike\u2019s College, played for the Ottawa Senators and was a member of the Trail Smoke Eaters that won the 1961 world championship against the Soviets. Grandfather and granddaughter share a jersey number, No. 16, and a passion for competing for Canada.
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\n\u201cHe knew she had chosen No. 16 and was quite proud of that,\u201d said David Turik, Mikaela\u2019s dad and Frank\u2019s son, who first suggested Mikaela try out for the Canadian team. \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank passed away last year. He would have turned 85 Thursday.<\/p>\n
He was pretty influential,\u201d said Mikaela. \u201cI look up to him as one of my guidances, just to play in the way he played, like good sportsmanship, always honest with themselves and honest with the game and trying 110% for every little thing that happens in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cricket is huge in Australia with 20,000 women playing in Mikaela\u2019s home state of New South Wales, yet only 500 women in play in all of Canada. The Canadian team is a true picture of multiculturalism, with 11 nationalities represented on the squad. A lot of them learned the game where they were born.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan, India, Kenya, Australia, West Indies, Sri Lanka, they\u2019re coming from all over,\u201d Canadian head coach George Codrington said. \u201cComing to Canada, not knowing that there is women\u2019s cricket here, no real grassroots, that poses problems. There\u2019s nothing to draw from. We\u2019re really relying on the immigrants coming to the country. They only know about the men. We have a few who are Canadian-born and they learned it in the schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Codrington wants to get the word out to female cricket players \u2014 and softball players, since the sports are similar \u2014 that Canada has a national women\u2019s cricket team. It has existed since 2006.<\/p>\n
Interested players can contact Codrington by email at gcodring@gmail.com.<\/p>\n
Chandra Gocool, Cricket Canada\u2019s CEO, recognized the growing importance of women\u2019s cricket and Canada\u2019s women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past few years we have stepped up our commitment to the women\u2019s program and we have seen marked improvement at the highest levels,\u201d Gocool said. \u201cWe are excited to see more and more women participating in cricket across the country in recent years. It\u2019s a positive sign for the future of the women\u2019s teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it was so disappointing this week when the Canadian women lost twice to the U.S. in a three-game series at Maple Leaf Cricket Club in King City, north of Toronto. The third game, which now means nothing but pride, is played Friday at 10:30 a.m., with another exhibition game Saturday. The U.S. will go on to represent the Americas in the Global World Cup qualifier to be held in 2012 in Bangladesh, ahead of the 2013 Women\u2019s World Cup in India.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing, but we\u2019ve got to take our hats off that we were beaten by a better team,\u201d said Codrington. \u201cThis is the first time they have beaten us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The losses mean the Canadians\u2019 World Cup dreams are over for this round. Their next competition now won\u2019t be until the next America\u2019s Cup in 2012. Mikaela\u2019s taking the losses hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going down three-nil (in this series),\u201d she vowed. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By ALISON KORN, QMI AGENCY There\u2019s a little bit of the Memorial Cup in the fledgling Canadian women\u2019s cricket team. Fifteen-year-old Aussie Mikaela Turik is the youngest member of the Canadian women\u2019s squad. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, to a Canadian dad and Australian mom, she was the top scorer in two games against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}