By Andrew Papadopoulos

Cait Stiles' life has always had something to do with hockey.  She started playing the sport at 8 years old, becoming a goaltender at age 11. 
 
"I played locally in Windsor with the Sun Parlour Female Hockey Association and Windsor Wildcats, where I played at the travel AA level from Peewee all the way through to the Intermediate level."  Stiles said. 
 
"From a young age I had an amazing goalie coach (current Windsor Lancers goaltending coach Perry Wilson). He taught me so much about the position, and I was always becoming a better goalie because of him."
 
Wilson's coaching influence rubbed off on Stiles. She began  helping her younger sister's team by mentoring the goalies, offering advice and guidance to them when she attended her sister's practices. 
 
"I found that I really liked helping the younger girls and being a role model that they could look up to," Stiles explained.  "I guess you could say this is where my interest in coaching started!"
 
That interest to coach and become a trainer then later brought Stiles to the University of Windsor women's hockey team where she first expressed her interest in coaching to her best friend and now Lancer women's hockey coaching colleague, Candice Chevailer, the team's strength and conditioning coach.
 
"In 2018 I helped out as a trainer and goalie coach with a local Bantam A Wildcat team along side Candice,"  Stiles recalled. "The following year, Candice had told me the women's team was looking for an equipment manager. I had previous experience working in a local skate shop so at the time I thought to myself, what a great opportunity to help out my local University!"
 
"I really enjoy working and being in the equipment manager role," Stiles stated. "We are really the ones who work behind-the-scenes that people often forget about (or take for granted) but we do play a pretty big role in making sure the players have everything they need to be able to perform their craft out on the ice."
 
Three years later she became an assistant coach with the blue and gold while also still working in her initial team equipment manager role. Fast forward to the present day and now Stiles is proudly partaking in the U SPORTS Female Apprenticeship Program which was launched in 2019 to increase the number of females in coaching positions across Canadian universities. It has allowed Stiles the opportunity of a lifetime to grow her coaching leadership skills and craft new expertise.  Stiles also is glad that she gets to do it alongside her original first coaching mentor Wilson and an experienced bench boss in Lancer head coach, Deanna Iwanicka. 
 
"Deanna (and the team) welcomed me with open arms and I felt part of the Lancer family from day one," Stiles disclosed while fully recounting her journey to becoming a part of the Lancers coaching staff. 
 
"Perry was the goaltending coach for the team at the time, and as soon as I found this out, I wanted to get out there with him. Only this time I wanted to learn from him from a fully coaching perspective. It is pretty cool how it came full circle given that he was such a key part of my playing days of hockey. 
 
"Deanna's passion for the game and relentless drive to bring a championship program here to Windsor has been the goal since her first day, and has not wavered a day since,"  Stiles enthusiastically remarked. "This passion she has and the time and effort she puts in to this team has only fueled my passion to be a great coach. She has been a great mentor to me, and continues to give me countless opportunities to grow and develop as a coach. I feel so grateful and fortunate to have two amazing coaches in Deanna and Perry in my corner who only want to see me excel and succeed."
 
Coach Iwanicka agrees that having Stiles as her assistant coaching and a U SPORTS Female Apprentice Coach Program protégé has been a privilege thus far to show her the ropes of varsity level coaching. 
 
"Our program has greatly benefitted from the apprentice program," Iwanicka affirmed.  "It has allowed Cait to be more involved with the team and develop as a coach. This is of great benefit to our community as well, while Cait develops, as do the student- athletes working with her, and together these are the future coaches of our game."
 
Stiles reflected on the experiences and obstacles she has had to overcome over the past year when it comes to embracing the coaching challenges in a pandemic setting, and she indicated that the adversity has only helped her and the team persevere and strengthened their resilience. 
 
"This past year has brought its fair share of challenges to say the least," Stiles admitted.  "The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in many different ways, with OUA athletics being no exception. Looking back on this year though, I don't think I have ever learned more or overcame more obstacles than I have in 2020 and now into early 2021. As coaches, we really had to get creative. Even throughout the pandemic I have continued to learn and educate myself as a coach. There are endless opportunities out there to do so. I was fortunate enough with the U SPORTS Female Apprentice Coach Program to be able to attend multiple online coaching courses throughout the year. Also integrating myself with online meetings, workouts and tactical sessions all became the norm for us coaches in a virtually transitioned world."
 
I took the lead on running goalie tactical sessions via Zoom. I meet once a week with the goalies where we focus strictly on goalie stuff," said Stiles. "It has given me time with the goalies to break down and focus on more specific aspects of goaltending that I normally might not have time to in a regular season. Anything from pre-game preparation to the mental side of goaltending to staying motivated to concentration, and breaking down video. I have tried to take things that I have learned through online courses, goalie training and other goalie coaches and applied it to create these goalie sessions."
 
Despite the abnormal circumstances that Stiles is currently flourishing in her young coaching career, she notes that being a part of the U SPORTS Female Coaching Apprenticeship Program has been an incredible experience to date and recommends that more women get involved in their future endeavours. 
 
"Being selected to be a candidate within the this program has allowed me to not only further my coaching development, but show the world that female coaches are just as capable as their male counterparts." Stiles confidently declared.  "Unfortunately, as women, there are still unprecedented challenges that we face when it comes to sport. With the help of organizations and programs such as this, we are able to break down some of those barriers. The U SPORTS Female Apprentice Program has been a great platform and opportunity for me to impact young women and girls in sport everywhere. Based on my experience so far I would emphasize that my main coaching philosophy has been never to stop learning. The game is continuously growing and changing and you have to grow and change with it."