Katie Weatherston

Occupation: Member of Canadian women's hockey team that won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics , Coach, Concussion Education

Katie Weatherston

Member of Canadian women’s hockey team that won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics

PLEASE NOTE KATIE WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO JOIN US FOR Session 3 right before lunch. We will have a larger number of students able to attend this session!

Who is Katie Weatherston?
Read her full biography on her website!

Katie Weatherston Hockey Highlights Video

CBC Interview

‘We’re going to build something great’: Katie Weatherston named head coach of Lebanese women’s hockey team
November 2019

Thunder Bay’s Katie Weatherston is on the hunt for another gold medal.

But this time, she’ll be behind the bench instead of on the ice.

Weatherston, an Olympic champion and former professional hockey player, has signed as the head coach of the Lebanese women’s hockey team.

“We’re going to build something great,” Weatherston told CBC’s Superior Morning on Monday. “I’m super excited to be a part of it, and never would I [have] thought my hockey career would have led me here.”

Weatherston — who was part of the Canadian women’s hockey team that won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics — was contacted by the Lebanese Ice Hockey Federation (LIHF) about the coaching job, and her hiring was made official earlier this month.

The LIHF is a relatively-new organization, Weatherston said, and is currently based in Montreal.

“A lot of [the players] have dual citizenship, so they’re Canadian and Lebanese,” she said. “Obviously, here, our program is stronger. They’ve been playing hockey a lot longer.”

“But we’re hoping to change that, and … develop hockey in Lebanon and bring some excitement to the country. They’re already really excited and supporting us.”

Canadians help Lebanon chase Olympic hockey dream
Lebanon itself, in fact, doesn’t have a rink yet, but Weatherston said that will be coming soon.

“By the sounds of it, they’re eager to build an arena,” she said. “Then, we can start developing local players as well, and get women involved in ice hockey there.”

Further, the LIHF was formally accepted into the International Ice Hockey Federation in September, clearing the way for Lebanese teams to compete at international events and tournaments.

The women’s team, Weatherston said, launched about a year ago, and the team will hold a training camp in Toronto in December.

Lebanon’s Montreal-based hockey team aiming for international recognition
“Most of the girls are on board,” she said. “We’re dealing with busy kids, too, that are in university hockey, they’re playing midget AA, so we’re trying to make that team a little bit more competitive.”

“We’re also putting a call out to Lebanese-Canadians, Lebanese-Americans, hockey players worldwide, we’re looking for them,” she said. “So, recruiting is a huge part right now, because we do not have a lot of players in our player pool.”

Weatherston said the goal is for the women’s team to start competing internationally in 2021.

“Obviously, I would love to go to the World Championships, or eventually the Olympics, but we have a lot of work to do before we get to that level,” she said.

From CBC Interview
In the days after those hits at training camp, Weatherston’s life and career as professional hockey player took a turn for the worse.

“I went to the hospital and had to get an MRI because I was having severe neck pains and nausea,” Weatherston explained, and when the doctor confirmed her concussion, in her senior year of college, the athlete was forced to miss a few months of hockey.

Three months later, Weatherston was back on her feet and doing what she loved most once again, until a minor fall gave her whiplash in 2008.

“I didn’t even hit my head again on the ice,” Weatherston explained, but “your brain going splish-spash inside your skull [and] I could feel that.”

Sure enough, that minor whiplash gave Weatherston another concussion.

“Now basically, my head is an egg so any minor fall, you’ll probably feel that splish-splash and there’s another minor concussion,” Weatherston said.

There was no doubt that Weatherston’s career as a professional athlete was now officially over. In fact, since her concussion, the professional hockey player’s life has drastically changed.
“That was probably a really rough time for me…because anytime you do anything you just get the airplane, ear-popping-sensation, head-pressure,” Weatherston said.

For the first two years, Weatherston said she could not wear sandals, walk on pavement or hard surfaces, wear a hat or even tie her hair.

“I couldn’t throw a baseball,” she said, because the simple act of throwing a baseball would rattle her brain and give her another minor concussion.

With everything Weatherston has gone through in the past eight years, she’s now using her experience to not help young athletes and students who are suffering from concussion, but also to raise awareness about the importance of protecting your brain and the mental illness that comes with it.

“Parents and coaches need to be more aware,” Weatherston strongly urged.
This past year, Weatherston said she met a student who suffered a concussion but decided to go for a run because the doctors told him he could get back into exercising once the symptoms disappeared.

Weatherston said it’s misinformation like that, that shows how important awareness around concussions are.

Katie Weatherston Hockey School