The first midget AAA player in the Alberta Female Hockey League to rack up 100 career points is humbled by the accomplishment.
“To achieve that milestone that no one has ever done before is pretty special,” said right winger Madison Willan of the St. Albert Slash. “But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of my teammates and the unreal coaching staff that we have here in St. Albert. They push the pace every day and it makes me a better hockey player.”
The 100th point in 70 regular-season games for the third-year Slash star was also her 48th career goal to open the scoring in Sunday’s 3-0 win against Calgary Fire at Mark Messier Arena.
Willan’s linemates, Jaden Bogden and Jenna Goodwin, assisted on the historic play at 1:06 of the third period.
“Jaden got the puck at the side of the net and she saw that I was open back door and she made a nice cross-ice pass over to me and I just put it into the empty net,” said Willan, who was aware how close she was to reaching 100 points prior to the contest. “I knew I had a shot at it, but I was just more focused on my play and just hoping the team can pull through for the win.”
Willan, 17, also pulled off an unassisted shorthanded effort for the team’s third goal with 2:02 to play. The league-leading 11th goal and 25th point in 13 games was Willan’s 49th goal and 101st point since joining the Slash in the AFHL’s inaugural season in place of the Alberta Major Midget Female Hockey League.
“Throughout all of my three seasons I’ve been a playmaker. I’ve always looked for other players and I’ve always capitalized on my scoring opportunities, too. In my first year I had 25 goals, 25 assists and last year, I had 13 goals, 13 assists so I’ve kind of been evenly split between that and this year, I’m just going to continue that same mentality that I have and that’s setting people up and capitalizing on my own chances,” said the 2016-17 AFHL’s rookie of the year and leading scorer with 50 points in 28 games.
Last season, Willan finished tied for fifth in points with 26 in 29 games and was fourth in goals.
Willan cracked the Slash lineup after piling up 34 goals and 63 points in 30 games with the Edmonton Lightning in the Alberta Major Bantam Female Hockey League.
“When I came in as a first-year I wanted to work hard and earn my spot and after my first year, after accumulating 50 points and just having a really successful year, I thought I could be one of the better players in the league and I knew that with the support of my teammates and everything it was possible perhaps but it was never really at the forefront of my mind until this past game where I knew I could make history so that is pretty cool,” said the diminutive scoring whiz who barely stands five-foot-three in skates.
Willan’s offensive prowess includes several highlight reel moments for the consecutive winners of the Final Frozen Four provincials, Pacific Region playoff series and Esso Cup national championship.
The most important goal in her first season was registered 57 seconds into the semifinal at the 2017 Esso Cup in Morden, Man., a 1-0 decision against the Durham West (Ont.) Lightning.
In the final, Willan assisted on the golden goal by Tyra Meropoulis in overtime to defeat the Harfangs du Triolet (Quebec) of Sherbrooke 1-0 as the Slash became the first team in Esso Cup history to finish a perfect 7-0 as well as the first Alberta team to win the championship.
Willan finished tied for the tournament lead in points with 10 while netting a team-high five goals.
Last season Willan’s fifth goal in four provincial games was the equalizer in the final against the Rocky Mountain Raiders with seven seconds left in regulation time and in the deciding game in the best-of-three Pacific Region deposited the series winner with 10 minutes to play for the 1-0 decision against the Greater Vancouver Comets in Richmond, B.C.
At the Esso Cup in Bridgewater, N.S, Willan potted the winning goal with 48 seconds remaining in the second period of the 2-1 final against the Saskatoon Stars as the Slash made history as the first team in the tournament's 10 years to repeat.
The goal was also Willan’s fourth of the tournament and seventh point.
As for the pressure surrounding a three-peat season, “I don’t feel our team feels it as much. We just go in every game and do our best but I definitely feel it from the other teams. Winning back-to-back national championships everyone wants to beat you so they can say they knocked off the national champs, so they always give us our best game and we always have to come back stronger,” said Willan, a St. Francis Xavier High School graduate who is committed to the Alberta Pandas for next season.
The Slash were a league-best 11-1-1 and winners of four in a row before Friday’s game against the Edmonton Pandas (4-12) at Bill Hunter Arena. The score was unavailable at press time.
“We’ve had a really good start to the season. Obviously our record speaks for itself. We’ve outscored teams by quite a lot (50 GF/10 GA with six shutouts) as well,” Willan said. “I’m very happy with how we’re playing right now. We can always step it up another level because every team that plays us wants to beat us all the time so we’ve got to bring our A game. We’ve got to keep moving the puck, keep feeding off each other and keep doing all the little things right and if we do that, we’ll continue to be successful.”
The Slash are also in Red Deer today to play the Chiefs (6-7-2) at 3:30 p.m.
Next weekend the Slash are competing in a tournament in Toronto.
“We have four league games of the year left (before the Christmas break) and all four of those games are away games and we’ve always been really good on the road so we’re just going to take our same team mentality of forechecking hard, working hard together and just building on the momentum so that we can continue on into next year,” Willan said.
Off the ice, Willan is a national-level women’s baseball player who made history as the first Canadian female to hit an out of the park homer, a pinch hit three-run shot to break a 2-2 for Canada Leaf in the 5-4 win over the USA Stripes in August of 2017 at the Washington Nationals Youth Academy.
“This past year was my second year with the national team but first year at the World Cup for Team Canada. We went to Florida this past summer and spent 17 days there and we competed in the world championships. We beat the U.S. for bronze so that was pretty cool,” said the Team Alberta midget AA female player, a versatile shortstop, second baseman, third baseman and pitcher who started playing ball with the Confederation Park Cubs’ little league team.
“My parents were always involved in sports and Dad used to play baseball and a lot of my other friends played it, too, when I was younger so I was kind of thrown into it and I fell in love with it.”
