Sharks captain Amson commits to Nipissing University for 2018

“It’s a dream come true of mine,” Amson said of committing to the Lakers program. “My brother played in the Western Hockey League so I kind of always looked up to him and wanted to follow in his footsteps and play at a higher level like he did.”

Amson’s older brother Carter is four years older, and once played a few games for the AAA Stars before going on to suit up for two seasons with the Lethbridge Hurricanes. He is now an electrician.

The 17-year-old Amson, who will wear the ‘C’ this season for the Sharks, will join another former Shark (and former teammate) Jetta Derenoski on the Lakers, as Derenoski is entering her sophomore season this fall.

Derenoski played in the Battlefords from 2011-15. Her last season was Amson’s first with the Sharks.

“She gave lots of good feedback about [the Lakers program],” Amson said of her former teammate. “Having someone I know there will be pretty cool.”

Lakers head coach Darren Turcotte said that after he recruited Derenoski, Amson’s name kept coming up in conversations and so the program wanted to monitor her progress.

In the end, they liked what they saw in the power forward.

“We really like players that compete hard and battle for loose pucks and we feel that’s something she does really well,” Turcotte said. “She doesn’t necessarily put up the big numbers in Battleford but we feel there’s a lot of potential there for her to progress into a very good player for us.”

Amson put up 31 career points over three seasons for the Sharks, with this one primed to be her biggest one yet.

But it’s not just her on-ice play that impressed the Lakers.

“We feel off the ice she’s very mature,” Turcotte added. “She’s going to step right in and we feel that she can help us right away.”

While away from the rink, Amson will study nursing, which is something she’s wanted to do for a long time.

“When I was 13, I had an incident and I was in the hospital for a while and I just wanted to be a better nurse than some of the nurses that I had,” Amson said. “I just looked up university nursing programs and some good ones that correlate with hockey well and I figured that Nipissing was one of them.”

And while she admitted being over 2,000 km from home will be hard, she said it’s absolutely worth it.

“I think that playing hockey and doing something that I love will help me get through it all,” she said.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

Sharks captain Amson commits to Nipissing University for 2018

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