NOTRE DAME CHANGED MY LIFE

For Notre Dame Hounds’ Julianna Herman and Mariko Bercier, the 2023 National Aboriginal Hockey Championship was a cross-Canada coming-out party. If you didn’t know Herman and Bercier before the tournament, you certainly knew about them after. Bercier, who is a member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation near The Pas, MB, was named Top Goaltender in the male portion of the NAHC, after leading Team Manitoba to the gold medal. Herman, a 17-year-old Métis woman from The Pas, was named the Top Defender in the female division after leading Team Manitoba to the silver medal. She accomplished the feat despite injuring her knee in the semifinal and her coach, Dale Bear, was impressed with her heart and desire as she played through the injury in the final. However, while the NAHC experience brought her to the forefront of women’s hockey in Canada, she was already well on her way. In fact, she has used her time at Notre Dame to improve her grades, amp-up her on-ice game and earn an NCAA Division-1 scholarship. “I got an NCAA D-1 scholarship to St. Anselm’s College in NEWHA (the New England Women’s Hockey Alliance),” she explained. “So, I got both an athletic and academic scholarship to go there. It was a big surprise. It was always my dream to have that Division 1 offer come up and I don’t think it would have happened without Notre Dame. A few came up and I decided St. Anselm’s was the best place for me to be so that’s what I chose. “The scholarship was both academic and athletic and I have to admit I wasn’t a great student growing up in The Pas. I struggled a lot, and I didn’t learn to read properly until my Grade 5 year. We moved away for a year and I finally learned to read when we lived in Oakville, Man. When I got back to The Pas, I did middle school there and then took off to Notre Dame. Notre Dame has been good to me. It improved my schooling drastically. I improved my marks a lot.” Herman says she followed her hockey-loving brothers into the game. “I got into hockey because I had two older brothers who were super competitive,” she said. “We always like to see who’s the best at it. “I played my first actual hockey game at the Roy H. Johnson Arena in The Pas when I was four-years-old. It was Timbits, but when I played back then, it was a full-ice game. That just made me even more competitive with my brothers.” “I played boys hockey until I went to Notre Dame in Grade 9. Playing boys hockey is the reason I’ve excelled. Having that competition level that the boys had – they always used to say to me ‘You’re not good enough because you’re a girl!’ But it made me push myself because I knew I was better than almost all of them. It made me that much better of a player.” Herman’s dad, Gary, is both a farmer and an optometrist and her mom, Lavonne, is “a farmer’s wife and an optometrist’s assistant.” “We farm grain,” she said. “We’re bigger this year than we were last year. We added some more land. I want to say we’re up to about 7,000 acres, around there. We usually start seeding later than everyone does in the south but for the first time in about 30 years, my dad tells me, ‘We’re going to start seeding in mid-May.’ “My oldest brother and my middle brother are both farmers. My middle brother, Evan, just finished his career in the dub (Western Hockey League) and he’s going back to farm full time and my brother Eric was also a four-year Hound like me and he’s farming, as well. My oldest brother, Eric, and my mother both went to Notre Dame. They must have liked us if they wanted me there.” Obviously, Notre Dame has liked the Hermans, but the Hermans also loved Notre Dame. In fact, playing hockey for the Hounds and improving her academics so dramatically, has made all the difference in Julianna’s life. “Honestly, Notre Dame has been a life-changer,” she said. “Getting away from the True North has been a big change. It’s been different, but honestly, it’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I’ve met outstanding people, many people who have changed my life for the better. It’s given me plenty of opportunities. “Going to Notre Dame was probably the most important thing I’ve done in my life.” And you can make the best decision of your life by visiting notredame.ca or by contacting Lauri Schmidt, National Enrolment Officer at l.schmidt@notredame.ca or Randy Brenzen, International Enrolment Officer at r.brenzen@notredame.ca. Notre Dame is currently accepting applications for the 2023-2024 school year.