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The Connecticut Polar Bears is one of the premier girls hockey programs in the country. The Bears have won 10 national championships in 15 years and had four players on the Gold Medal-winning U.S. Olympic Team. During the past few years, the Bears have had young women coming to Connecticut to join the organization from numerous other states, including Alaska, California, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York, and also includes international players from Montreal, Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Wilmot, who has been playing hockey since the age of five, is currently a 13-year-old seventh-grader at Chase Collegiate School in Waterbury. Her love for hockey takes up nearly all year, as she begins play in August, and will wrap up shortly. The Polar Bears' schedule included four tournaments in which the team either won or placed, along with a state championship, a New England regional championship and a right to play for the Girl's Tier 1 U-12 national championship.
The state title was captured the weekend of Feb. 22, when Wilmot's third-period goal proved to be the game-winner, helping the Bears to a 2-1 victory. With the win, the team earned the right to go to the 2009 New England Regionals during March in Waterbury, Vermont, to play the state champions from Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and another Connecticut team (at -large). The winner from this tournament would represent New England in the National Championships in Rochester, New York.
Wilmot and the Polar Bears convincingly won at New England's, finishing with a perfect record and scoring 20 goals, while only allowing two over the course of the weekend. The victory earned the team the right to play for a national championship.
In between Regionals and Nationals, Wilmot had also been selected to Team Connecticut to play in the New England Hockey Festival in Saco, Maine. The players chosen from each state are combined to create four teams to play in the Festival against each other, with each Festival team being made up of a combination of girls from all the states. The New England provides further player evaluation and development after the Festival selection process is complete. It's not a tournament, but a camp of intense training and competition, and Team Connecticut had a great showing, winning all but one game.
A week later, the 2009 USA Hockey National Championships took place in Rochester, where the top 12 Tier 1 teams in the country compete for the title .The Polar Bears battled in the three-game round robin against teams from St Louis, Boston, and Morristown, New Jersey, and played well enough to make the top eight and play in the quarter-finals. There they faced a team from Buffalo, N.Y., that eventually went to the finals, and fell, 4-2, in a well-played game.
The NHL season isn't over yet, and Wilmot will still see more time on the ice. This weekend she'll play in the Quebec City Challenge Cup Tournament in Montreal as part of the Connecticut Yankees. The Yankees are a tournament team comprising 15 players, 13 from all around the state, and two from New York.
