By Adriana Fallico
Captain Emily Baxter was everywhere on the ice during a Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold women’s hockey practice.
Donning purple stick tape from the annual Do It For Daron campaign game, she slowly skated up to her teammates to chat with them.
Unafraid to bring on the physicality once practice began, she cross-and-shoulder-checked her teammates to win puck battles in the corners.
Every time TMU women’s hockey head coach Lisa Haley gathered the team to discuss a new drill, she knelt at Haley’s left-hand side—listening and observing.
Though this is her first season as captain, her experience in athletics isn’t limited to one sport. Baxter is known in the TMU community as a veteran hockey player but she also has talent in baseball. She joined Baseball Canada’s women’s national team this past summer at the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup group stage as a utility player.
“You think about what it takes to be on a national team and a dual-athlete in the first place, coupled with what it takes to be a student-athlete at the varsity level in university…you wonder how many hours are in her day,” Haley says.
Canada’s group—Group A—played games in Thunder Bay, Ont. from Aug. 8-13, 2023. The top three teams from the group will advance to the tournament’s final stage, which is set to begin on July 28, 2024 and close on Aug. 3, 2024.
Three teams from Group B—who played their games in Miyoshi, Japan—will also qualify for the finals to be held at Port Arthur Stadium in Thunder Bay, Ont.
After winning four out of their five group stage games in August 2023, the Canadian national team finished second to secure their spot in the finals this upcoming summer.
In her three World Cup appearances, Baxter recorded a total of four runs, one hit and one run batted in.
Now on the ice, the dual-sport athlete says she’s progressively growing more confident in her role as captain.
“It’s been awesome,” Baxter says. “I really tried to step into it and embrace it, just making sure that I’m being a leader on and off the ice.”
For Haley, it was an easy decision to name Baxter captain for the 2023-24 season.
“On the ice, we asked her to take on a bigger role both offensively and defensively and she demonstrated earlier this season that she was prepared to do that,” Haley says.
In her third season with the Bold, she has dressed in all 23 regular-season games so far and has tallied 12 goals—the highest on the Bold roster and fourth in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) conference.
“I’m pretty happy with how my season’s going with the production,” Baxter says. “[In] my first year as captain, I’m just trying to be a good example.”
Baxter has played both hockey and baseball her entire life. She started skating when she was three years old, which led to her quickly enrolling in hockey camps. Meanwhile, she started playing baseball at around five years old.
After years of trying her hand at different sports—such as soccer, field hockey and volleyball—she saw herself playing ice hockey following high school.
“I always knew I wanted to play hockey in post-secondary [school], and I feel like in my mind it was the one [sport] I wanted to pursue,” she says.
Baxter said baseball wasn’t an option for her because of the lack of opportunities for female baseball players. She faced a tough decision: either make the permanent switch to softball or not go to school for it at all.
“You wonder how many hours are in her day“
Softball—a shorter variant of baseball where pitchers throw the ball underhand instead of overhand—was first introduced in 1887 as an indoor version of baseball and has since evolved into an outdoor game.
According to Softball Canada, the game is more widely accessible to female athletes compared to baseball.
However, Baxter didn’t want to stop playing baseball. When she was introduced to the women’s national team, she found a new avenue to continue playing.
“[I thought] ‘I might as well keep going if I feel good and my body feels good,’” Baxter says.
Despite initially wanting to pursue hockey at a post-secondary level, the TMU captain now can’t pick which she prefers more.
Baxter finds herself gleaming when everything goes well on the diamond during the baseball season, praising it as her favourite. However, midway through the hockey year, her gears switch back to the ice as she reconsiders and thinks about how hockey is her favourite sport.
The constant change between the two sports epitomizes her passion as a dual-athlete. Regardless of which she’s playing at that given moment, she does it for the love of the game.
“By the time baseball’s done, I’m like, ‘I can’t wait for hockey,’” she says. “And, by the time hockey’s done, I’m like, ‘I can’t wait for baseball.’”
Back at the TMU women’s hockey team practice, each player took a shootout attempt to end their morning.
When it was Baxter’s turn, she walked in towards the net and took a wrist shot. The puck hit the goaltender’s blocker and went wide. Still, she got stick taps and encouraging cheers from her teammates as she skated to the bench.
While most players went back on the ice for a second chance, Baxter opted to stay out of the drill and root for her teammates—who kept their ears peeled for their captain.
“She’s got the attention of the players in the [locker] room,” Haley says. “And the respect from them as well.”
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