Canada’s Future Olympic in Olympic Snowboarding is the ESHOF Athlete of the Month

Born to a family that grew up on the slopes, Jennifer Hawkrigg quickly followed suit, putting on her first pair of skis at the age of one.
After witnessing how much her Mom and older sisters loved snowboarding, Hawkrigg decided to give the board a shot, making the transition from skis to snowboard at four years old. But it was when she watched a race at her grandparents’ home club in Ellicottville, New York that she truly fell in love with the sport.
“I saw that they had a snowboard race team there and I saw older kids racing,” Hawkrigg said. “From there, I automatically knew that this is what I wanted to do.”
Hawkrigg was raised in Etobicoke. Her grandparents owned properties near Ellicottville—a popular skiing destination in New York state—so her family constantly visited the area during the winter.

When she was nine, Hawkrigg asked her parents to let her join a race team back home in Toronto. She started to snowboard at a competitive level, racing against some of the best in the world through Junior First Inline Ski and Sport, as well as the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association.

Hawkrigg would also take another interest playing competitive hockey.

“My former interest in hockey came from my Dad and my brother,” said Hawkrigg. “We were a huge hockey family, so I decided to give it a shot when I was 12 years old.”

She ended up playing goalie for the Etobicoke Dolphins AA hockey team for six years. Between her studies, snowboarding and hockey, things started to get tough for Hawkrigg.

“I was juggling school and both competitive sports,” she said. “I pretty much had to decide which one I wanted to do.”

Hawkrigg eventually realized that she belonged on the slopes, rather than the rink.

Since 2015, Hawkrigg has been atop multiple North American Cup and International Ski Federation podiums, and placed third in the national junior championships in 2014.

Her performance has also landed her a spot with the Canadian alpine development team, a group of young snowboarders who are considered to be future competitors for the national team. Canada Snowboard—the sport’s national governing body—implements a rigorous training and race schedule to help them prepare for competitions.

Since then, Hawkrigg has changed her schedule, attending school during the summer and fall and taking the winter off in order to train and compete. It’s paid off, with seven top-five finishes in Hawkrigg’s last 17 races.

There isn’t a snowboarding team at Ryerson, but Hawkrigg was selected by Canada Snowboard to represent the university at the Universiade (FISU) winter games in Kazakhstan this past February.

Over 2,000 competitors from schools in 57 nations participated at the games. Hawkrigg placed fourth in the parallel slalom event.

This upcoming season will be her third season on the Canadian Team. Over the past three years, Hawkrigg has competed in the North American Cup Tours, the Europa Cup Tours and recently this past season did the entirety of the World Cup Tour. After this season, she was named to the 2018-2018 World Cup Team after finishing 2nd place overall on the North American Tour and placing 2nd at this year’s Canadian National Championships. Next year, Hawkrigg will continue to compete on the World Cup Tour, with races In Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany etc.

“Jennifer sure knows what it takes to be an Olympic caliber athlete says Joanne Noble, President of the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame.
“Her tenacity, compete level and commitment gives her an advantage as she pursues her dream. Her character is outstanding and I can only hope that we see her atop the podium with gold around her neck”