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Haneet Parhar thought she was done with hockey after university, but through coaching, the BFL Female Coach of the Year found her way back to the game
Haneet Parhar didn’t always have hockey in her plans. But for one reason or
another, hockey always found a way back into her life. And for that, Parhar
is forever grateful for the opportunities she’s had through the game.
Her passion for giving back to the sport that gave her so much has led to
her being honoured as the BFL Female Coach of the Year in the High
Performance category.
“There’s been so many times in my life where I’ve told myself ‘This is it, I
don’t know if I’ll ever go back to a rink or pick up my skates,’ and then
boom, I come back to hockey,” Parhar says.
As a student-athlete at the University of British Columbia, there was a lot
of uncertainty if she would even make the Thunderbirds roster. She would
eventually have a very successful U SPORTS career, winning three Canada West
championships, but her time at UBC also kicked off a career in coaching that
she never imagined.
From wanting to just stay involved as an 18-year-old undergrad student,
working as a coach in community rink programs and UBC hockey camps in the
summer, it reminded Parhar of the joy she found in hockey, for herself and
the kids in her programs.
“Doing it throughout my school and varsity career at UBC, I coached at the
recreational level for five-and-a-half years,” she says. “When you start at
that level, I really did it because I loved it. You see the kids smile and
it’s really easy to take away that hardcore style of coaching and do it for
fun. It was a great fit for
