Blyth's Boven, Brussels' McCallum win district broomball awards for 23/24 season

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

Blyth Broomball is lucky to have not one, but two regional award winners in its midst after the recent Central West Ontario Broomball Association awards.

 

The organization is a division of the Federated Broomball Association of Ontario (FBAO) and when it handed out its year-end awards, Kaleigh McCallum of Brussels was named Junior Female Player of the Year and Leah Boven of Blyth was named Official of the Year. The region is comprised of Blyth, Seaforth, Palmerton, Harriston, Mildmay and its surrounding areas. The awards were handed out earlier this spring in Trenton.

 

Fourteen-year-old Boven plays for the U16 Girls team in Blyth and occasionally for the U20 team when they need some help to fill their bench. She says she has an extreme passion for broomball and would play it every night of the week if she could. And, while she’s certainly doing her best to fill her calendar with broomball, to achieve that goal she turned some of her attention to officiating.

 

This is only her second year wearing the stripes, but she wanted to give it a try and received great mentorship from the older Blyth referees, who were pleased to bring someone a bit younger aboard.

 

Boven can only officiate games between players who are younger than her, meaning that she can officiate games for the U14 teams and down as of right now.

 

The Grade 9 student said that winning an award for her officiating was not something she had considered. The local association hands out its year-end awards, of course, but she never expected to be recognized at a regional level.

 

As for the art of officiating, Boven said that one of the most important things she had to learn was to view the ice differently as an official that she does as a player. Letting the action go on without getting involved, even when the players are very young, is the key to that and she’s learning more and more about that different viewpoint every game.

 

As for the season ahead, she wishes it started yesterday. Boven says she simply cannot get enough of broomball and wants to immerse herself in it as much as possible, seeing no real end to her work as an official with the Blyth association.

 

As for McCallum, she said she was proud, yet surprised to find out that she had been nominated for Junior Female Player of the Year when she didn’t really know that players were even honoured on a regional level like that.

 

“It was pretty cool,” she said of winning the award, admitting that she wasn’t aware of the award’s existence. To be honoured for her work in the 2023/2024 broomball season is something she’ll appreciate for years to come.

 

The 16-year-old from Brussels, a Grade 10 student at F.E. Madill in Wingham, has been playing for Blyth for a number of seasons, really since being a member of the local U12 team. Last season, however, she played as a member of the U16 Girls team and she had a great season, even if the team wasn’t able to triumph at the provincial championships.

 

This season, however, McCallum has plans to expand her broomball presence, though not in the same way that Boven has. McCallum is hoping to play for Blyth again, but then for a Juvenile team perhaps in another division to increase her time on the ice.

 

As for what keeps her coming back, McCallum says that playing the sport is plenty of fun, but it’s her teammates and all of the people she’s befriended and gets to spend time with on the ice that keep her coming back season after season.