To say she likes to keep busy might be an understatement for Abby Warriner.
The 21-year-old Newmarket product is in the fourth year of the five-year biomedical engineering co-op program at the University of Guelph. She also plays on the university’s field hockey team.
And she’s having a stellar year. She has been named Ontario University Athletics’ (OUA) most valuable player, which follows two consecutive years of being named on the top-11 list of all-star players. Eleven represents the number of players on the field for each team.
“Warriner, a fourth-year senior, is the strength and power in the midfield for the Gryphons in the sweeper position. She played a major role in defending and transitioning the play from defence to offence for the West Division topping squad, helping anchor an overall team effort that surrendered just five goals all year,” the OUA stated in its announcement of the award. She scored four goals and eight points for the University of Guelph Gryphons during the season that just wrapped up.
The Gryphons ended their season last week, claiming OUA Silver after a 2-0 loss to the Waterloo Warriors in OUA in the finals.
And although the season is over, Warriner was lauded yet again this week. She was named U SPORTS Player of the Year at the OUA Field Hockey All-Canadian Awards banquet on Wednesday evening.
“It was awesome hearing my name. It was a surreal experience… it’s really an honour to be considered at that high of a level,” she says.
Warriner’s role on the field is as a sweeper or centre mid-fielder, a very active position on the team that has her closely following the ball, in defence and offence.
She enjoys the running and the speed the position demands. But it’s the teamwork that stands out for her, describing the other team members as her best friends.
Warriner came to the sport early. While most people have their introduction to field hockey in high school, Warriner began playing with a club at age 11 after her older sister started playing in high school.
All three sisters played right through high school, but Warriner continued on the university level, following in her mom’s footsteps. Her mom played provincially.
But her path was a bit circuitous.
“I played ice hockey growing up… as a lot of Canadians kid do,” she says, explaining that she started on the ice at age six. Five years later field hockey was added in the summertime as way to train off season. “Its nice to build both kinds of skill sets.
“Up until the end of high school I played both sports competitively.”
When it came time for post-secondary education and she had to choose, ice hockey got her vote and she prepared to go to Laurentian University.
Then Laurentian encountered financial turmoil and the hockey program was cut. So Warriner quickly switched gears and found a spot on Guelph’s field hockey team.
“It clearly worked out for the better,” she says now.
The training regime has been hectic during the three-month season that sees her juggling her course work, labs and projects as an engineering student, too. To keep on track of the five-year program, she’ll take courses during her co-op work periods as well.
It all begins with training camp in August. With two practices a day and 40 hours of training per week the bonds within the team quickly develop. Two games every week then follow in September and October with two-hour training sessions on the week days.
“I like being busy, it comes natural to me to manage my time like that… it kind of forces me to get my work done early,” she says of the hectic schedule.
With the outdoor field hockey season at an end, Warriner has a bit of a break until the indoor season gets started in January. While she says the indoor and outdoor versions of the sport are quite different from each other, the ability to play indoors during the winter offers the opportunity of ongoing training to keep players in good form for the outdoor offseason.
Next year she enters into her final year at Guelph, but she hopes to continue her field hockey career. She’d love to connect with the outdoor national team, which is based in British Columbia. Members of the national team, she explains, are older and she see the prospect of more growth for her in the sport.
Another option is the indoor national team, which is based in Ontario. There are U25 clubs as well.
The Olympics is a dream she has to keep in check. Canada hasn’t fielded a women’s team at the Olympics in some time, having to compete with countries in Europe and Asia where field hockey is the third most popular sport after cricket and soccer.
As for a professional career, well, that’s still up in the air. Warriner says she would like to continue with school and work on a master’s degree, but not until she gets some work under her belt and decide what discipline she’d like to follow.
“I think I would like to talk a break, play field hockey, get a job,” she says. “I’m going to play as long as I can.”
