Ooks goalie Kaitlyn Slator savours record-setting college career

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This article was published 26/01/2024 (602 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kaitlyn Slator recently made history in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.

On Jan. 13, the fifth-year goaltender for the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) Ooks earned a 4-0 shutout facing the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) Trojans to record her 47th victory, making her the ACAC’s new career wins leader.

“It was just an acknowledgment of the amazing teams I’ve had at NAIT and the success we’ve all been able to have,” said Slator, who is 24. “I’m lucky to be in a great program that has put out a lot of great teams and great hockey players. I couldn’t have won those without everyone around me.

“It’s pretty cool the hard work I’ve put in over these past six years has been recognized in that way and I can hopefully leave a legacy for myself.”

Slator and the Ooks have six regular season games remaining. They are in first place in the six-team league with a 14-5 conference record, one game ahead of the Lakeland College Rustlers and the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens.

The other teams are the Olds College of Agriculture & Technology Broncos and the Medicine Hat College Rattlers.

Slator also has an outside shot at the career shutouts record. She has 10, which is two off the mark.

The one honour which has eluded her so far during her stellar career is the one she most wants to win. NAIT hasn’t earned a league title since the 2014-15 season, with RPI taking the last two, and MacEwan University — who have since moved to U Sports — winning three prior to the COVID years of 2020 and 2021.

“That’s the award I want most out of everything, is to win that championship,” the Vincent Massey graduate said. “We’ve been close a few times, so I hope this last year can be the year. I think we have a good shot at it if everyone on our team wants it as badly as I think we all do.”

Slator has made seven appearances this season, with a 5-2-0-0 record, a 1.71 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage. She’s also nudged her career wins total to 48 while reaffirming that decision she made six years ago was the right one.

Slator, who spent five years in the Westman Wildcats program in the U15 and U18 levels, was originally recruited by NAIT when the U18 Wildcats attended the Calgary Firestarter Tournament, an elite showcase for AA and AAA players which is well scouted by schools.

She had previously done spring camps with other teams, but when she toured the Edmonton campus, Slator was sold.

“I found some programs I was interested in and I liked the facility and Edmonton and everyone on the team,” recalled Slator, whose parents are Jason and Kim. “I came here and luckily it worked out. It’s been awesome.”

She lives about five minutes from campus, which includes NAIT Arena. The campus is located centrally in the city, a few kilometres north of the Legislative Building and the home of the Edmonton Oilers, Rogers Place.

She said the U18 AAA Manitoba Female Hockey League was the ideal launch pad for everything which came after.

“It does a good job of being that stepping stone from regular house league hockey to a more competitive program,” Slator said. “It’s in the middle. It’s not as intense as college, but it’s way more intense than any other league. It’s a good way to ease you into it, and it also opens up all those options of what you can do after.

“I didn’t really know about playing hockey in college or university and the Wildcats kind of introduced me to that. They’re a big part of the way to get here.”

Slator said the college league features good hockey, something she thinks is underestimated by young players looking to take the next step after U18.

The Westman region has just five women’s hockey players in the ACAC this season: Slator is joined on the Ooks by former Yellowhead Chiefs defender Josie Nichols of Onanole, plus Brandonites Hayley Kolosky (RPI) and Kamryn Cloet (SAIT), and Shelby Lee of Birtle (Medicine Hat College).

Slator said it was quite an adjustment early on as a rookie during the 2018-19 season.

“In my rookie season, the big transition for me was managing sight lines,” Slator said. “At the higher levels, players know how to take away those sight lines and shoot against your shot angles. That was a big transition, along with my puck playing and handling. I had to improve that much more to succeed at the college level.”

Clearly it didn’t take long because Slator was lights out. She set records for the most saves in a season with 570, most wins with 19 and most games played at 24.

After posting a 1.62 goals-against average and a ridiculous .933 save percentage, she was named rookie of the year and to the all-conference first team.

“It was super cool,” Slator said. “It changed my game and gave me some confidence to believe in myself and be like ‘Ya, I can play at this level and I can succeed.’ It was nice to have that first year that went well.

“I had a really good team in front of me and we managed those second-shot opportunities. It was nice for my mental game.”

On top of that, she was also named an academic all-Canadian. That’s terrific for any first-year athlete, since new student-athletes invariably learn good time management skills are a must as they balance school with sports. But she had some help.

“The rookies have to do study hall every week,” Slator said. “It helps you get into that routine of studying after practice and having people to work on things with. That’s a big part of being a student-athlete in college or even high school when you’re playing with the Wildcats. You have to be able to still do your schoolwork and succeed in that because that’s a big part of being a student-athlete.

“… It’s a little tricky, but it becomes routine after you’ve done it for a while.”

In her college career overall, she has a 48-18-0 record, with a 1.76 GAA and a .923 save percentage.

After losing the end of the 2019-20 campaign and all of the 2020-21 season — players were given an extra year of athletic eligibility to make up for the latter — she was named all-conference second team in 2021-22.

She said during the six years she has been at NAIT, her confidence and trust in herself have continued to grow in every part of her life. On the ice, since the mental battle is such a big part of goaltending, that’s carried her a long way.

“Having experience in the league helps a lot and just being able to read plays better and know what’s happening before it does,” Slator said. “Off ice too, I’ve matured a lot and that helps with my schooling and more difficult programs now, but I have those building blocks I learned when I was 17 and came here. It changed me into the person I am today.”

After earning a personal fitness training diploma in her first two years, she took medical radiology technology diploma, which includes X-ray, mammography and CT scans. Now she’s finishing up a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology diploma.

Slator is an unusual college student for one big reason. She works twice a week currently as an X-ray technologist and bought a home in Edmonton last year.

She said this will help the cushion the blow of skating off the ice for the final time as an Ook in the coming months, although it still won’t be easy.

“That’s a tricky one,” Slator said. “It kind of changes on the day. I love hockey and have played since I was five years old. It’s going to be one of those hard things to let go.

“I started a great career for myself and I look forward to my future, so when there’s something to look forward to, it’s not all a bad ending, but I’m going to miss the game a lot.”

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