It's not often one can say their childhood hobby and passion becomes their career, but with dedication and hard work that's exactly what happened for Alana Goulden (BA '05) – current Equipment Manager for the Canadian Women's Olympic Hockey Team.

As a young child in Aurora, Ontario, Alana grew up playing hockey and at 13, she joined her town's organized girls league as soon as it was created. While she continued to play throughout high school, her goal was to play hockey at the University level.
 

Fast forward to her graduation from York in 2005, and Alana had not only played hockey for five seasons with the York Lions Women's Hockey Team (2000-2005), she was also named team captain in her final year.

However, it wasn't until she graduated – having enjoyed her time on the team so much and hoping to stay involved in some way – that she decided to pursue the equipment side of the sport – a side that had always interested her. With an eagerness to stay involved and an obvious love of hockey, she got in touch with Steve Dempsey, then the Equipment Services Supervisor, who allowed her to help out the women's team the following season.

What started as a hobby on nights and weekends as a way to stay involved, while Alana worked full-time at her family business back home in Aurora, steadily grew to become more.

After 2-3 seasons, a part-time opportunity arose in Equipment Services at Ryerson University and, haven fallen in love with the job by then, Alana decided to pursue it. Through hard work and dedication, after one year she was able to parlay that part-time opportunity into a full-time position when the opportunity arose in 2012. Alana's dad was supportive of her leaving the family business to follow her passion, and with that, her full-time career in Equipment Services officially began. Now, the Equipment Manager, her office is in Ryerson's Mattamy Athletic Centre, formerly the old Maple Leafs Garden building in downtown Toronto, which makes everything seem even more full circle.

Currently, Alana is on a leave of absence from her role at Ryerson while she works as one of two Equipment Managers for the Canadian Women's Olympic Hockey team – the defending Olympic champions. She's currently in Calgary, where she's been since last July, training with the team for the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

So, what does being an Equipment Manager at the highest level of sport entail? Alana's days are admittedly long with "nothing glamourous about them." On game days, she's at the rink by 8am for the pre-game skate, and her day ends about 14 hours later at 10pm. "Along with Serge, – the other equipment manager, we are making sure the dressing rooms are open, their laundry is handed out, they have their practice jerseys…everything they need," said Alana. "We're sharping skates for the game – typically on game day we have up to 15 pairs to sharpen. After the morning skate we'll get their laundry done and then set up their room for the game…making sure they have all the supplies they need for the game. We're there through the afternoon. Then we're there in case anything comes up – any last-minute requests or issues." Then it's game time. "We set up the bench – water bottles, back up sticks, any tools or supplies we think we'll need during the game. Play the game. Hopefully nothing comes up. Then afterwards it's kind of the whole thing over again," Alana said. There's also a lot of traveling (Quebec, Boston, Minnesota, San Jose, Tampa, Winnipeg and across Alberta in just the past few months) and long stretches away from her family.

"It's long hours," said Alana. "It's not glamourous by any means. There's not a lot of down time – it's hard work but at the same time, if you like the work – it's really not that bad It all pays off in the end and when you have success as a team – it makes everything worth it…you're all working towards the same goal. And knowing that you're contributing, even just in a small way, to the team's success – I really enjoy that part of it."

And heading to the Olympics is pretty sweet too.

"I'll try to stop myself and think 'man if you would have told me five or 10 years ago that I'd be going to the Olympics with the national team I never would have believed it – it's a dream come true for sure," Alana said.

Later this month, Alana will head to South Korea with the team for pre-competition camps before moving into the athlete's village.

Reflecting on her time at York, Alana said "I was lucky to have Dan Church as my coach in my 5^th year. His professionalism and how much he cared about the team, and the game, and women's hockey – really stuck with me. He was so supportive of me getting involved in Equipment…I've tried to keep that with me – if I see people that show interest in the job I try to help them out and support them like Dan supported me. And also, Steve Dempsey, he didn't have to give me the opportunity to do the job…he saw my interest and passion for it and was able to work with me. And the standard that he had set in Equipment Services – I learned from him how things should be done, the professionalism that he showed…that stuck with me for sure."

When asked if she has any favourite memories Alana said, "I don't know if I can pinpoint it – I had so many... Just being able to have that [hockey] to look forward to everyday – that extra thing in my life to look forward to. And lifelong friends that you meet, the teammates you had, the good times that you had – it's some of the best times of your life. Being able to play at a high level was really rewarding and a lot of fun too."