SUBMITTED PHOTO Matayah Metz is seen playing for the Northern Alberta XTreme against Banff Academy in a Canadian Sport School Hockey League game this season.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Matayah Metz has been going the distance to further her future on the ice.
The 16-year-old Medicine Hat product has been playing out of Edmonton this season as a rookie with the Canadian Sport School Hockey League’s Northern Alberta Xtreme midget girls prep program. With aspirations of taking her game to the university level, Metz says the decision to head north has done wonders for her development.
“I believe I’ve grown a lot as a player,” said Metz. “Not just skill-wise, but positional-wise and hockey smarts. We’re on the ice four times a week and we work out every day after school except Friday. We’re usually gone Friday-Saturday-Sunday, so it’s a really busy schedule, but I’ve gotten so much development. Even skating-wise, skill-wise – our skills coach is Rob Brown, he played in the NHL, we have really great power skating coaches – we work on pretty much everything to better our game.”
Playing with the Xtreme has also allowed Metz to hit the ice in front of scouts from across U Sports and the NCAA. Considering she’s hoping to crack the university level and thrive as both a player and a student, it’s been welcome exposure.
“I hope that I can do school and play university hockey. That’s what I want to do,” she said. “I wanted to be a vet at first, but now I’m leaning more toward kinesiology, but then taking a special animal course to specialize in animal rehabilitation.”
Metz has been on an upward trajectory for the past few years. In 2018 she was the only player from Medicine Hat selected to compete at the Alberta Winter Games, and she went on to lead the Lethbridge Cyclones midget elite squad – now renamed the Southern Alberta Express – with two goals in three playoff games last season.
It was at that point Metz made the decision she wanted to take her game to a higher level, even if it meant moving away from home. She was confident in her chances on the day she showed up at NAX identification camp in Edmonton, but admits it was still impossible to contain her excitement when she got the call saying she made the cut.
“I was pretty much in awe,” she said. “It’s not doubt in myself, but I was like, ‘Wow, this is actually so cool. The Canadian Sport School Hockey League?’ I was like, ‘I’m going to play in that? That’s so cool!”
Metz added she also had interest from a team in Red Deer, but opted for NAX where she could billet with her grandparents.
“I really enjoy it up here. It’s pretty fun. Living away from home is kind of scary but now I’ve gotten used to it,” she said, adding living with her grandparents helped ease the transition. “It makes it a lot easier. For me, personally, I do get homesick quite often, but I know that I’m going to come home soon (for Christmas). And we’re so busy, we’re so go-go-go that sometimes I even forget that I’m living away from home.”
Metz has a goal in 12 regular season games with the Xtreme this season. While they sit 4-8-0 on the CSSHL campaign, the Xtreme went 2-2-1 at the Mandi Schwartz Tournament in Wilcox, Sask. – billed as the largest female midget AAA tournament in Western Canada – earlier this month. With playoffs already in the cards, Metz says the focus has been to develop and prepare for a post-season push.
“We have just come so far, even since August,” she said, adding coach Tyrel Spitzer always stresses the positives. “Our coach has a lot of faith in us. He’s been pretty good about that, he really believes in us. If we have a maybe not so good structure-wise game, he’s always giving us the positives.”
