Windsor hockey team 'Chix with Stix' proves hockey is for all ages

Hockey is meant for all ages and Betty Gangnon is proof of that. 

The 81-year-old from Windsor still hits the ice with the Chix with Stix hockey team—a team of two dozen women that's been slapping pucks every Wednesday for over two decades.  

"I love to skate and play hockey, for one," said Gangnon, who is lovingly dubbed 'Old Bag' by her teammates. "Meeting with these girls every week, that's my inspiration to come out, and keep me young." 

Gangnon is the oldest player on the team, with the youngest being their 29-year-old goalie. 

Gangnon said her friend Kathleen Rocheleau, 65, got her involved with the team almost 18 years ago. 

"The looks that you get when you're as old as we are and you say you're still playing hockey is awesome," Rocheleau said. 

Gangnon said she learned how to skate when she was 57, just so she could play on the team. Before that, she had only played floor hockey. When she was younger, she said, "There was no girl's hockey at all." 

"Being the second oldest on the team, we get a lot of respect," Rocheleau said, adding that the team feels like a family. 

Eighteen years is a long time to play together, Gangnon said, and through those years the Chix with Stix players have been through it all. 

"We've been through marriages, funerals, divorces, birthed children, re-marriages," Rocheleau said. 

The team was started by word of mouth in 2000 by current player Shalaina Kitsos' aunt. 

"She told a couple people, a couple people told a couple people, and they borrowed equipment from whoever we could find," she said. 

Cheryl Van Herk, another Chix with Stix player, said she drives an hour each way to play every Wednesday. 

"It's an all-year-round team and you don't want to forget how to skate, right?" she said. 

Heather Forsythe, 45, said she found out about the team through a newspaper ad around 2005.

At the time, she said, she had just finished college and there weren't many places in Windsor for women to play recreational hockey.

What started as a way to play Canada's sport eventually lead Forsythe to find family in her fellow players. 

"We celebrate birthdays, we go on vacation, we celebrate weddings—we're always doing things together. It's a family and we're always supporting each other," she said.