The gift that keeps on giving: Panelist says move to hockey changed her life

December 22, 2025

Ambrah MacNeil says hockey has given her the life she enjoys today.

“Hockey really shaped me into the person I became,” says MacNeil, one of the participants in the discussion panel on the history of girls’ hockey in Inverness County, held at the Chestico Museum in Port Hood this past summer.

“It wasn’t something I did. It was part of who I was, or who I am,” she explains, noting that she wouldn’t even have her two sons if not for the sport. “I met my husband Damien playing co-ed hockey one Friday night.”

MacNeil became quite emotional in relating her experiences in hockey during the event at the museum, and she says it surprised her.

“I don’t know if it was just the vibe of the whole experience, the coming together and reflecting back on those times. It just caught me off guard in a way that I didn’t expect.”

MacNeil got into hockey when she was in Grade 7 at Mabou Consolidated School, after four years of figure skating. She says there were a few reasons she made the change.

“I wasn’t a good figure skater,” she laughs. “I loved skating, but as far as the discipline that figure skating takes – in practicing different techniques – it didn’t really interest me anymore. It’s a very technical sport.”

“The other reason I shifted was a lot of my friends were playing girls’ hockey, and they were loving it.”

So, with the decision made, MacNeil says her father began checking around for used gear for his daughter. But showing up at the rink in second-hand gear was not to be her fate, thanks to the kindness of a neighbour.

“I was just excited that my parents were on board, and I was totally accepting the fact that I was going to get second-hand gear,” she recalls.

And that was the plan, until one day when neighbour Angus Campbell made one of his frequent visits for tea.

“He didn’t think the idea of me having a second-hand pair of skates was a good idea,” MacNeil says. “He thought I needed a new set of blades.”

So, Campbell accompanied MacNeil and her parents as they went to Canadian Tire in Port Hawkesbury in search of skates.

“I found a pair of CCM Tacks that fit nicely, and we were fully prepared to go, but Angus had grabbed a cart and was just telling me to try other things on,” she remembers. “There were shoulder pads, elbow pads, one thing after another, until I had a full set of equipment.”

“We were all swept up in the moment. My parents were really adamant about it. ‘You can’t do this, Angus. We can’t allow this. This is way too much.’ But it was something that he really wanted to do.”

Though he refused to take any money for the gear, Campbell, who today is in his 90s, did receive a very special thank you many years later, thanks to Stuart McLean and his Vinyl Café show on CBC Radio. MacNeil was listening to the show one day when listeners were encouraged to nominate someone for the show’s annual Arthur Award, which celebrate “ordinary” people for acts of kindness.

“I thought, ‘the Arthur Award was the perfect thing for Angus,’” she recalls. “I wrote a letter and emailed it to the show’s producer. I just sent it in and never gave it another thought.”

“I think it was months later that I got a phone call from that same producer and she said, ‘we loved your letter, and Stuart wants to interview you and Angus on the radio, and we want to give Angus an Arthur Award,’” MacNeil says. “I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy.”

“We did the interview. Stuart absolutely loved him. He got such a kick out of him. They were really happy with the interview.”

MacNeil, who still plays regularly today, says she doesn’t consider herself a pioneer in the least.

“I look at girls like Shelley Cummings and Leanne MacDonald (both fellow students in Mabou) and Norma MacKinnon (in Inverness), because they were in my time when I was starting. Those to me were the trailblazers because they were playing really competitive hockey.”

She says playing hockey for a living wasn’t something she considered possible, although she remembers as a kid hearing about the exploits of Manon Rheaume, who in 1992 became the first female player to try out for a team in the National Hockey League (NHL).

“That was the only time that the seed was planted in me that that could actually be a thing,” she says. “You know, ‘maybe there could be a national women’s league.’”

“We didn’t have that to look forward to,” MacNeil says. “The boys had the NHL. As a female hockey player growing up, we didn’t have the NHL to strive for, but now with PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League), that’s huge. So, girls today have something to strive for.”

Coming up through hockey, she says just having the opportunity to play hockey with her friends was the pinnacle.

“For me that was enough.”