Women's hockey from scratch: UNB hires Sarah Hilworth as head coach

Sarah Hilworth is the new UNB women's hockey coach, and the job starts right away: getting a brand new team on the ice by the fall of 2018.

Hilworth comes to the Varsity Reds after two seasons as head coach of the women's hockey team at Olds College in Alberta. There she faced a similar challenge: building a program where previously there was none. 

"It doesn't come overnight, and I understand that, and as much as we wish that it did, it's definitely going to be a process," said Hilworth.

"The resources that we need to be successful, we have here on campus, which is very very exciting that we get to toy with some stuff that are going to be able to bring in some student athletes and have the ability to showcase ourselves as a contender for high profile athletes."

Her move to  UNB Fredericton was announced Monday. 

The university was forced to restart the women's hockey program after reaching an agreement with the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission and former UNB women's hockey player Sylvia (Bryson) Dooley. Dooley filed a complaint after the program was cut in 2008.

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UNB athletics director John Richard said Monday's hiring puts the university right on track with where it needs to be.

"We'll ice a team in 2018, 2019," said Richard. 

"Sarah will spend the next several months building that program, building that team, finding those student athletes, so we've kind of followed the timeline that the task force came out with."

Hilworth was chosen from among 41 applicants sor the head coaching position. The list was narrowed in April to eight candidates, and Hilworth emerged as the university's final choice. 

Before taking her first head coaching job, Hilworth was an assistant coach for the University of Alberta Pandas. There she helped lead the team to back-to-back first place finishes and a Canada West championship in 2015.

As a player, she helped lead the University of Alberta to a national championship in 2010. 

Nothing but new

Hilworth will now hire a coaching staff and then start recruiting players. But finding top players in the first year will be a big challenge, because she can't introduce the prospective players to an existing team, she said.

"It's tough not bringing kids into Fredericton, into the campus, and meeting the girls and using that as a selling feature for a lot of these girls and just showing what our culture is really about," she said.

"I'm a big believer on culture. So not necessarily having that within our girls yet, it's going to be a lot of pressure on myself to show these kids what their experience will be like athletically and academically here on campus."

Despite that, Hilworth said she is already in talks with some of Canada's top young players about going to UNB.

Though it will be a completely new hockey team, the expectations from fans will be high, given the success of the men's team.

The men's hockey team has won the national championship in back-to-back years and is one of the top men's hockey programs in the country. 

Hilworth said she hopes to use that to her advantage and learn from men's coach Gardiner MacDougall. She also hopes that within the first year the team will be fighting for a playoff spot.