NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The South Alberta Hockey Academy men's U18 prep team poses in front of the Big Marble Go Centre sign after hanging purple ribbons on the trees outside the Centre to help increase awareness around Family Violence Prevention month.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The South Alberta Hockey Academy men’s U18 prep team learned more than how to execute on the power play Wednesday morning.
The academy team spent the first part of the morning with Peggy Revell, the community education and awareness co-ordinator for The Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society to discuss Family Violence Prevention Month.
Revell spoke with the team about the Women’s Shelter starting up in the 70s, what they do and how they help any woman, man or child experiencing family violence.
In her presentation she said one-in-four women and one-in-seven men in Canada will experience family violence that ranges from physical abuse to mental, emotional, sexual, verbal, economical or spiritual abuse.
“The more you know about family violence, the more you know about abuse, how it happens, the types of abuse, this is the generation we can change,” Revell said. “We can make it so that the cycle stops and there aren’t any more generations where it’s happening. That’s why it’s so important that everyone here is on board with it.”
After her presentation, the team cut up purple ribbons and tied them to the trees alongside the main road entering the Big Marble Go Centre.
SAHA goaltender Zach Zahara says he was glad they took part in the presentation to help further raise awareness.
“We just have to be mindful of people, you don’t know what people are going through at home,” Zahara said. “Just having an extra awareness and making sure you’re kind to everyone and being an overall good person.”
In her presentation Revell pointed out that in a room of more than a dozen people, there are multiple who have experienced family violence or will experience it and reminded them if they were a victim, it was not their fault.
SAHA captain Elias Eisenbarth says his takeaway from the morning workshop was to treat people positively because it’s hard to know who is dealing with what. He was also glad SAHA could take part in the exercise and hopes to help spread awareness.
“I think it’s crucial for teams to get out in the community, especially because people pay attention to us and that’s one way you can really spread attention to certain causes that can be meaningful and can impact people that maybe necessarily wouldn’t know,” Eisenbarth said.
The SAHA women’s prep team would have taken part Wednesday morning but they were tied up with preparations for a four-game weekend starting today. They will have their own presentation later in the month.
SAHA men’s assistant coach Torrin White said as much as they want to make their players better at hockey, they are also focused on helping them become better people and Wednesday morning is just an example of that.
“One of our goals at the academy is give these guys as many tools to succeed later in life and prepare them for junior hockey, prepare them for university, to be a father, as possible,” White said. “Being able to have people like Peggy and the Women’s Shelter come in and expose these guys to things that they wouldn’t normally hear or wouldn’t normally see is huge for them. They handled it awesome and were completely engaged and it was a big positive this morning.”
The Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society and its community partners are offering free information webinars throughout the month, beginning today. To see a full list of topics, visit http://www.mhwss.ca/fvpm2022-webinars.
Community members can show support for victims of family violence by taking part in the month-long purple ribbon campaign or the #iwearpurplebecause social media campaign. More details can be found on MHWSS’s website.
