Editor’s note: For the next few weeks, this column will feature this year’s individual inductees to the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.
Andrea Bevan has stickhandled a hearty hockey career that’s taken her all over the world, but three years ago she decided to move back home to Collingwood.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood, we spoke with Bevan, 37, one of four individual inductees to the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame for 2024.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I was born and raised in Collingwood. I went to school here, and I went to Collingwood Collegiate Institute.
For sports, I played mostly in Collingwood. Once hockey became a little more competitive with the boys ... they didn’t have a girls program here. First, I went to Barrie, and from Barrie I started playing in Toronto.
Q: When did you first know that hockey was your thing?
A: I wouldn’t say I knew at a young age. My parents put me in a lot of different sports. I started out figure skating. I was always playing road hockey with my friends.
My mom and dad decided to switch me over to hockey, probably when I was seven or eight. I was also playing soccer and basketball.
I think it got to a point when I was in high school when I was quite competitive in soccer and hockey. It got to a point where I needed to decide which one I really wanted to focus on.
Q: Would you like to reflect on a lack of options for girls hockey back then?
A: Back then, it wasn’t as popular as it is now. It’s gaining a lot more momentum.
Back then, I had friends that were mostly boys and we lived on the same street. We played road hockey together. I wanted to go with them and have my friends on the team. It didn’t make much of a difference.
I was improving and getting better, but it was tough being the only girl in a small town playing.
As a girl, I didn’t make teams because of that, because of how it was back then.
It wasn’t the best feeling, but my parents could see my potential and could see that I was competitive. I needed to go to a spot where I could show my potential and not be held back.
Q: Where did your hockey journey take you after that?
A: I had to decide if I wanted to go the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) route or stay in Canada.
I’m very much a homebody. Family is important to me, so I decided to stay in Canada.
They had scouts come out when I was playing junior hockey in Toronto.
I went to Wilfrid Laurier (University). I knew, based on the coaching staff at Laurier, that I wanted to go there.
My coach at Laurier, Rick Osborne, asked if I had any interest in trying out for Team Canada. Obviously, that was the dream. I think that’s the dream for any woman playing hockey.
It was the goal I set for myself.
In 2005, I started in with the program. It’s a lot of dry-land training. I went to Calgary for training camps.
Eventually, you get picked or not to go to different international tournaments.
I went to Germany in 2006. We won there.
When I was in university, they started the Universiade (now FISU World University Games). They never had women’s hockey before, so we were the first group to represent Canada. We went to China for that. We won there as well.
Just to cross paths with a bunch of different girls with the same goals and mind set was so much fun.
Q: Do you still play hockey now?
A: I play every once in a while, just random pick-up games.
My husband and I started a hockey development program called Azevedo Hockey Development in Collingwood, so we’re on the ice quite a bit with the youth.
Q: Do you live in Collingwood now?
A: Yes. My husband was also a hockey player, so we spent 12 years overseas. We came back with our kids in 2021.
Q: When you found out you were going to be inducted this year into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, how did you feel in that moment?
A: Just to be thought of in that realm is such an honour.
Knowing who has gone in in the past and what they’ve been through — it’s nice to be remembered.
Q: What do you do when you’re not doing hockey stuff?
A: I went to school to become a teacher, so once hockey was slowing down, I went to Nipissing for teacher’s college.
Then we went overseas. There aren’t a lot of teaching opportunities there that coincide with a hockey season for my husband. I played in Finland. When he signed into the Russian league, we went to Prague. They didn’t have women’s hockey.
I made friends with other import wives who were from Canada. We all eventually had kids, too.
Coming back now, I supply teach.
Q: Is there anything else you want people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: If you have any desire to come play hockey, or have kids who want to play hockey, try out our hockey school.
We offer different development techniques to get kids to live up to their potential.
We have three kids of our own, so we want to build a good group of people for our kids to be around.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we speak with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way, letting them tell their own stories in their own words. This feature runs on CollingwoodToday every weekend. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
