BC Business
GRITTY IN PINK | Anne McMullin plays field hockey at the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex West
In her own words, UDI president and CEO Anne McMullin talks about her after-hours life on the field hockey pitch
I’ve played field hockey since I was about 10 years old. It was just a game that I loved and was passionate about and wasn’t too bad at. The women that I play with, some of them I’ve played with since elementary school, high school. We’ve all kind of ebbed and flowed through work, family, injuries, and so many of us still play.
As vice-chair of Field Hockey Canada, I’m really involved with the field hockey community itself. We talk about field hockey for life and play it for life, particularly getting girls involved and continuing to play.
I play on weekends in a local Burnaby league from September till March, then I coach spring league, then I play in a drop-in league in West Van, and then I play drop-in in the summer. I used to play premier league and now I’m kind of working my way down. I usually play forward, but if we’re losing, then we all play defence.
I’m very competitive. I always wanted to win, and if you didn’t win, it was sort of disappointing. It’s the one place in my life right now where we’re just having fun. You want to be winning at work and in all these other areas, but it’s just a nice place to go. We play to win, but if we don’t, it doesn’t matter. We just go home and there’s good camaraderie with the other team.
We’re a little slower than we used to be—a lot of us used to be high-performance players—but you want to play your best. You’ve got 11 players and you don’t want to let them down—but in the end, have a good game, let’s go for coffee and that sort of thing. That’s my competitive spirit. You always give it your best no matter what you’re doing, even if it’s just for fun.