Early one morning in February 2022, Ashton Bell walked into the Doc Bonar Arena in Deloraine, Man., with an Olympic gold medal in her hand.
Kids meet at the rink in the tiny community, home to fewer than 1,000 people, one morning every week. They work on drills with local coaches and eat breakfast before heading to school.
It's where Bell practised twice a week for nearly a decade, and on this day, she was back to share the medal she earned as a member of Canada's women's national hockey team.
Her mom, Teresa, still sets up breakfast for the kids at the club, even though her daughter's not one of the kids on the ice anymore. "The kids were just super, super excited to see her medal," said Bob Caldwell, Bell's longtime skills coach and founder of the breakfast club. "She comes on the ice and she's really good with [them]." Seventeen years after Bell's skating caught Caldwell's eye inside that rink, the now 24-year-old Bell has made a home in Ottawa, where she's poised to be one of the leaders on the PWHL team's blue line for years to come.