Shaiyena Côté and her team recently won the Danish Women’s Ice Hockey Championship
Shaiyena Côté, a North Bay hockey player with roots in Temagami First Nation, has taken her love for the sport across the world.
On March 21, Côté and her team won the Danish Women’s Ice Hockey Championship, marking a major milestone in her hockey career.
Currently pursuing a master’s degree in sports science at Malmö University in Sweden, she recently played for Hvidovre IK in both the Danish Women’s Ice Hockey League (Danmark KvindeLiggen) and Swedish second league (Nationella Damhockeyligan).
Côté is a 27-year-old who was born at the old St. Joseph’s Hospital in North Bay and grew up on College Drive until she was 12, attending elementary school at Pinewood Public School and École Héritage and École secondaire publique Odyssée for grades 7 and 8. Then she moved to École secondaire catholique Algonqin.
At 12, the family moved to Astorville, and Shaiyena attended and graduated with honours from Algonquin in 2015.
Her love for hockey started early.
“My parents gifted me a little mini-stick hockey set. And from there, my dad would put on the hockey games on Saturday night, and I would just sit in front of the TV and watch. That kind of became my sport,” she said.
She initially tried figure skating but was ultimately drawn to hockey.
“I think I was three, and I just pointed at the hockey players at the rink and said, ‘I want to do that.’ So my parents put me in hockey, and the rest is history,” she said.
Côté earned her undergraduate degree in sport management from Brock University in 2022 while continuing to play hockey. Last fall, she moved to Sweden to pursue her master’s degree.
Unlike Canadian universities, Swedish universities don’t have varsity sports teams, so she sought out other opportunities to play.
In October, she joined Hvidovre IK, commuting from Sweden to Denmark three to four times a week for practices and games.
Winning the championship was a “bittersweet moment.”
“Our arena was packed. Even the team we beat had their family section full, and even they were happy,” she said.
The moment also felt lonely, Côté said.
“I cried because I looked around at my teammates, and they had their friends and family there. I didn’t have anybody to see me win,” she said.
“My mom has never missed a season or a game, so it was tough. I FaceTimed her from the ice, but it’s not the same as having her there to hug me.”
On March 21, Shaiyena Côté and her team won the Danish Women’s Ice Hockey Championship. Supplied photo
Sweden’s approach to women’s hockey differs from Canada’s, Côté noted.
“One of the cool things about the Swedish professional women’s leagues is that they allow full-body checking, not just body contact, which adds a certain grit to the game,” she said.
Despite her talent and dedication, Côté faced challenges growing up in the sport.
“I was not only usually the only girl at my tryouts, but I was one of the only Indigenous kids,” she said.
“In my pee wee year, I did have one other Native teammate, but it was rare to see kids of colour in hockey. Never mind a girl.”
At 13, she experienced racism firsthand at a tournament when someone told her to “go back to the reserve.” She also encountered gender discrimination when she was cut from her AA team.
Côté’s parents encouraged her to focus on hard work, not barriers.
“They told me to go out, try my best, work hard, and be a good teammate without seeing colour or gender,” she said.
Côté is uncertain where she’ll play next season but hopes to move up to Sweden’s top league, the Swedish Women’s Hockey League.
“This summer, I’ll be training hard, working on my skills and speed, and reaching out to teams to see what opportunities are out there,” she said.
Her long-term goal is ambitious. She wants to become the first Indigenous female coach in the NHL, following in the footsteps of Jessica Campbell, the first-ever female coach in the NHL.
“I know it’s a lot of work, but I’ll get there. The path might take me a little bit, but I will do it,” she said.
Côté wants young Indigenous athletes to know they can succeed while staying connected to their culture.
“No matter where you are in the world, you’re always going to be Native. Your culture will always be with you. You don’t have to stay on reserve to embrace it. There are ways to carry it with you,” she said.
“Whether it’s having a small eagle feather with you, like I do, or a tobacco pouch like there’s, there’s ways in which you don’t have to stay on reserve to fully embrace your culture.”
Ultimately, she hopes her story inspires at least one young Indigenous athlete.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure to stay on reserve, to stay in one place, but the world’s a big place, and sometimes you miss out on opportunities if you just stay in one place,” she said.
“We are smart, we are educated, we’re good at sports, and we have bright futures. If this reaches even one Native kid on a reserve, I’ll be happy.”
Cote is a registered member of Temagami First Nation and Teme Augama Anishinabai, her father is a former Chief of the TAA and former trainer with the North Bay Skyhawks Jr. A team and he worked at the Fur Harvesters Auction for over 20 years.
She played boys’ A and AA hockey for West Ferris Minor Hockey and Astorville, as well as high school hockey for Algonquin. She has officiated for the NOHA in North Bay, Astorville, and Powassan and is an NCCP/Hockey Canada certified Development Level 1 coach, Hockey Canada certified official, and trainer.
She applied to and was accepted to the Sport Management undergraduate program at Brock University in St. Catharines, and moved south to pursue university, returning home for the first two summers to coach summer hockey schools at Double Rinks in 2017 and 2018.
Cote graduated from Brock in June 2022. Shaiyena has worked as an NHL hockey writer and scout since the summer of 2018 and has traveled across Canada, to and from the US and to Europe, to write about NHL prospects. She has attended the NHL Draft, Canada/Russia series, IIHF World Junior Championship, IIHF Men’s World Championship, and the last three years covering the Champions Hockey League in Europe with media accreditation.
In December 2023 she was recommended by Utica Comets Head Coach, Kevin Dineen, to the National Hockey League Coaches’ Association’s Global Coaches’ Clinic in Las Vegas in June 2024; while there she attended the NHL Draft.
After much hard work and the daunting task of finding funding to go further with her post-secondary education, in early 2024 she applied to and was accepted to the Sport Science Masters Degree program at Malmö University in Malmö, Sweden.
“This program is unique and not available in North America as it is a hands-on, internship masters thesis program,” her mother Abby told BayToday. “Shaiyena started learning Swedish in 2021 and has no difficulty with the language and has been to Sweden twice before as well as several times to Finland, where her best friend is from, and twice to Czechia. Shaiyena has the highest marks in her master’s program.
The secondary reason for going to school in Sweden was the opportunity to play women’s pro hockey, a lifelong dream of hers. While she was unable to connect in time before the season started with a Swedish team, she was recruited to play for the Hvidovre Ishockey Klub – Nationella Damhockeyligan, who play out of Copenhagen, Denmark in the top Danish Women’s League and the NDHL, Sweden’s tier two women’s league. Copenhagen is roughly an hour and a half each way by city bus, commuter and intercity trains from Malmö, Sweden. Shaiyena played for Hvidovre from October 1, 2024, through to March 21, 2025, winning their division in the Danish women’s league and going on to win gold and be crowned the Danish National Women’s Champions.
Unlike Canadian universities, Shaiyena’s master’s program does not end until June 8, 2025.
“This has been a very difficult year, but she has stuck to her goals and pursued both her post-graduate studies while playing women’s semi-professional hockey,” explains Amy.
“People will see her hard work, dedication, and commitment in the face of huge adversity, and she will continue to be the role model and mentor that she has been for Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth.”