“I felt like I was a little bit late arriving to the party.”

That said, should Team Canada manage to knock off the two-time defending champions from Finland at the 2022 World Ringette Championships in Espoo (Finland) in November, Canadian team captain and Walden native Erika Kiviaho might well be the last to leave the ensuing party.

If nothing else, the 30 year-old graduate of the Laurier Golden Hawks women’s hockey program is more than a little appreciative of the opportunity to represent her country for a third time, an honour that was anything but a given for the multi-sport athlete who graduated from the ranks of the OUA in 2016.

“It’s tough after university,” said Kiviaho. “There has definitely been some putting off of the career stuff in order to do what I needed to do in ringette.”

Such can be the pathway coming out of northern Ontario, a more challenging setting when it comes to making a name for yourself in the sport of ringette - even if you are a Canada Winter Games gold medal winner, as was Kiviaho, a member of Team Ontario back in 2011.

It certainly wasn’t as though the middle of three local girls in the family had not shown top end ringette potential along the way. “When I moved to Waterloo, I was starting to get some more exposure but then I played hockey at university which pulled me a little but away from my ringette path for a little while,” she said.

In fact, it was a move from Calgary to the K-W region by then national team captain Christianne Varty that would ultimately prompt the decision by the northern girl to follow her ringette dreams for at least a little while longer.

“It was kind of at that point where I was unsure and she encouraged me to go to tryouts in 2017,” said Kiviaho. Ironically, that timing coincided as well with some restructuring being undertaken by Ringette Canada and its programming, paving the way for what has been a very nice five year run for the woman who will wear the “C” into action in just over a month in Europe.

“Since 2017, they (Ringette Canada) started bridging the programs together with high performance camps so that people were in that environment more regularly instead of just during the year when Worlds are hosted (every second year),” explained Kiviaho. “I really liked the environment and cracked the roster that year and have been there ever since.”

All of this takes us back to her opening statement of this story and a sense that she may have missed her window of opportunity when it came to donning the maple leaf in international play.

“Some people that I was close with had already been on the national team for a while,” she said. “But as soon as I got on the team and got that experience, then 2019 was a for sure.”

In fact, the upcoming World Championships will represent the third appearance for Kiviaho at the event, with Canada coming off back to back losses to Finland when it came down to laying claim to global ringette supremacy.

On a more individual basis, however, Kiviaho had nothing to complain about as she enjoyed a return to the setting with Worlds hosted in Burnaby (B.C.) in 2019. “That was one of the best performances of my career,” she said. “During my first cycle with the national team (2017), you’re trying to get comfortable, trying to fit in to that environment.”

“I went in to 2019 feeling more comfortable, knowing the expectations of the coaching staff. Me and Varty were really dialed in to the training, with peak fitness and a real commitment to performance.”

While Kiviaho has long been known as an incredible natural athlete, the jump to ringette superstardom was a little more gradual. “I’ve always really liked training and doing different sports, so my physical capability is there,” she stated. “But I definitely honed in on some more strategic and tactical parts of the game, started perfecting that a little bit, really understanding the systems that were being taught and executing them.”

One step forward, two steps back. Such was the across the board consensus as Covid-19 took hold. For a young woman who was already finding it difficult trying to balance life and sport, that would mean far more questions than answers.

“To hold on for two years and then make the decision to come back was starting to get tough again,” said Kiviaho. “I am at the point where I want to move on to a career (she is a fully trained firefighter) and it’s been a long time of holding stuff like that off, sacrificing things like that.”

Certainly, there is some foreshadowing in her words as we look to 2023 and beyond. With all that she has accomplished, and exactly what was required to accomplish it, one can understand that Erika Kiviaho is likely far more at peace with the notion of leaving the game that she loves, if the upcoming World Championships are to be her last.

“I’ve had an interesting path,” she said.

No argument at all on that front.