Marc Macdonald chats with Panther Field

Hockeyveteran Holly Boswell

Holly Boswall is cur- rently playing her fifth season with the field hockey Panthers. She admits that it has not always been easy, espe- cially when the losses have come more often than the wins. It is also difficult when there is a misconception among students that the team is no good because they do not win every game. Boswall is confident that they will do well this year and she hopes to finish off her career winning an AUAA championship.

Marc MacDonald - What are your feelings on the season so far? Holly Boswall -

I feel we have an extremely good team this year. We have really good rookies in. Mainly our defense and

forwards and actually our goalie plays ex- tremely well. Her name is Amber MacDonald, she is an excellent goalie. She’s a really good asset to the team. As far as playing wise we haven’t come together yet. UNB is the team to beat for sure, they always have been. If we could play up to our potential, we don’t have a problem.

MM - Is it difficult competing in such a small league?

HB - Yeah, that’s true. It’s really hard cause you don’t get as many games. Your season is so short, it’s only like two months, we’re done in the end of October. When you just start to get the feel, then it’s like the sea- son’s over and you're into playoffs. It’s hard.

MM - Paige Murphy (Panther Goaltender) said that some people have a negative image of your team, do you know what she meant? And do you agree? HB: Yeah, I know what she means. | know myself when people are like “how did you do this week- end?” it’s like we lost, but we expect to make the excuse “yeah but we played well”. But it doesn’t matter if you played well, we still lost. You know we’ve been losing for a few years, it gets hard. People are kinda like “yeah well the field hockey team, they just Which is true but we try hard. I wish

lose”.

we could win so we could say “there, we

did it, we're better than the score shows.”

That’s what I'd like.

MM - How are you

expecting this weekend at UNB to go?

Well we had a session with Karen Costello, who works with Sports P.E.I. she’s a sports psychologist. She helped a lot. We have a very complex team you could say. Charac- ter wise, she brought out a lot of things, which is good. We definitely know what we have to do, it’s just a matter being able to do it, and controlling our emotions on the field and not getting worked up. So I’m hopping a lot of people will take what she said and apply it to the game. If that’s the case then, I’m hopping for a

good outcome.

MM - What is the St. Mary’s team like this season?

Stronger then they have been in the last couple of years, but still

beatable though.

When we go to play them, I don’t think “oh dear, we're gonna play St. Mary’s.” But they did beat us the first two times we met them. So we can’t take them for granted. They are strong but still beat-

able.

MM - How are the rookies adjusting to the team?

HB: Actually very well. I was quite surprised. They’ re not really lacking in anything. I want their confident attitude because there have been a few of us here who have already played with the team, we're just used to losing. I’m fifth year and we've lost all five years. It comes down to the playoffs and we play well but you still lose. I don’t want the rookies to get into the same mind set that we

are. I want them to want it and to dig for it.

MM - What are your expectations for the rest of the season? HB: Personally I'd love to finish off winning AUAA. I really think we can do it, most definitely. Myself I’m going to try crazy to get the team into it, to want to do it. I’m sure they do, they just got to work for it. UNB, this weekend, it’s gonna be tough. | really think we're gonna have the out- come we want. Then we face St. Mary’s on our turf which will help a lot. I’m betting we're gonna take out two there. Then after that we play Dal which is like an exhibition game. AUAA is com- ing up, and | think we're gonna be giving

them a good run. END