Olympic Medal Winners Visit North Park

Coach Ivo, head coach of both 14U Bantams Black and the Metropolitan Riveters, invited some special guests before practice at American Dream this week:  Coach Venla Hovi and player Amanda Pelkey.  And they brought some of their hockey hardware!

Coach Hovi is a two-time Olympic medalist, winning Bronze for her native Finland in 2010 and 2018.  And Pelkey holds a 2018 Gold medal from Team USA's Olympic championship.  

The conversation in the locker room was, in fact, riveting, as both shared lessons learned and earned with the North Park Bantams.  "Failure always changes something.  You either decide that it's OK to continue failing or you decide to get better," was one great insight.  

Both players emphasized how crucial playing multiple sports was to their development.  At the elite international level, all the top players are terrific all-around athletes and not just great technical hockey players.  

Finally, both Amanda and Venla encouraged the Bantams at their age (13-14) to pay attention to their chosen craft -- it's always the attention to detail that makes the difference.  

The 14U Bantams Black look forward to rooting for the Riveters at a home game later this season and send a "thank you" to Venla and Amanda for their time.