The Sault College women’s hockey team was presented with the Key to the City by Sault Mayor Matthew Shoemaker at the beginning of Thursday’s Sault College board of governors meeting.
Sault MPP Chris Scott presented the team with a certificate of appreciation from the Province of Ontario.
The honours came after the team won its third consecutive American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II National Championship in March.
Five members of the team - Farrah Farstad, Matea Glavota, Halle MacLachlan, Emma Lee and Zoe Weaver - were joined by coaching staff including retiring head coach Brianne Shunock at Thursday’s meeting.
The awards presentation was followed by a report from Paul Orazietti, Sault College athletics director.
With a greater focus on sports, the institution now recruits athletes domestically and internationally to play on its teams while they study in college programs.
“Next year we will have 90 athletes from the Sault and another 90 from across Canada with eight international students coming to athletics from places like Australia, France, Samoa, Hungary and the United States,” Orazietti said.
The college has dropped sports in which it has been unsuccessful, dropping from 11 varsity teams to seven.
“We needed to get involved in sports that had strong grassroots as well as solid community support,” Orazietti said.
Those sports include hockey, curling, baseball and - beginning in the fall of 2025 - women's volleyball and football. The women’s volleyball team will use the college’s gym while the football team will tentatively play at Rocky DiPietro Field.
A more focused approach to sports in recent years has brought results for the college, Orazietti said.
Prior to 2019, the college had never won a single national championship. Since then, Sault College has won four national championships in the last six years, one in men’s hockey and three in women’s hockey.
The institution has raised nearly $20,000 from admission to sports events and sales of Sault College athletics wear.
It has also raised over $60,000 in community and corporate sponsorships and donations in the last fiscal year.
“It's a recruitment tool,” David Orazietti, Sault College president said while discussing the college’s athletics program with reporters after Thursday’s meeting.
He noted that at one time colleges didn't recruit specifically for sport.
“Some individuals came to the college that were good at a particular sport, and there were often signs posted in the hallway to join or sign up for a sport.” David added.
Those days are gone.
“Today, the sophistication of recruitment for specific sports teams is much more advanced and all of the individuals who play on the sports teams are specifically recruited now,” David Orazietti said.
Meanwhile, in a salute to its athletes and coaches over the past 50 years, the board was told the institution plans to erect a Sault College Athletics Hall of Fame in the F wing across from the athletics mural by the school gym.