Clementine hangs up rep skates

[attach]4783[/attach]Caitlin Hutcheon is making a huge sacrifice in order to focus on business degree grades at Wilfrid Laurier University this fall.

The St. Clement’s School grad is giving up the very game she loves, hockey, at the varsity level.

“I’m going to be focusing on my academics,” she said. “Last year my grades slipped a little bit because of hockey and all my sports.”

It will take some adapting though, as hockey for both the SCS Penguins and Scarborough Sharks took an iceberg’s worth of her time out of her life.

“Last year it was so nice just to know I had hockey coming up,” Hutcheon said. “Playing only once a week just for recreation is going to feel so different.

“I’m going to have a lot of extra time.”

Her career as both a Penguin and Shark is not without its accomplishments. During the 2010-11 season, Hutcheon and co-captain of St. Clement’s hockey team, Molly Scott, taught rookie Dylan Kerdman Canada’s game.

“(Kerdman) didn’t know how to play hockey at the beginning of last season, but she joined the team,” she said. “She could pretty much skate and stick handle a puck by the end of last season.

“It’s her new passion.”

With achievements, there are often setbacks.

Hutcheon shared her winter of discontent when a bodycheck into the boards during a Scarborough Sharks game in grade 10 caused her pain.

“I don’t really remember what happened but my knee cap got jammed into another part of my knee and it got chipped,” she said, adding the injury impeded her trying out with the St. Clement’s team.

But that wasn’t enough to keep her from cheering on her fellow Clementines to their Division II CISAA games.

“I did travel with the team, but I was there to talk to the players,” she said. “A lot of my friends in my grade and I would talk to the younger players.”

Three years later the knee hasn’t quite healed properly.

Still, much like the shark, Hutcheon keeps moving, and spends her summers playing softball and falls shooting hoops.

But even though she’s moving on, she’s going to miss the land of Red Blazers.

“I made so many great friends at the school and Scarborough Sharks hockey team,” she said. “I’m going to miss not seeing them every week.”