Gillian Apps descends from a famous hockey family: her grandfather Syl Apps is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and competed in pole vault at the 1936 Summer Olympics, while her father, Syl Apps, Jr. is a former National Hockey League player. Thus it is not surprising that she has become a successful hockey forward since graduating from Havergal College and suiting up with the Beatrice Aeros of the National Women’s Hockey League in 2001. Her year of transition, however, was 2002 when she finished a second season with the Aeros and also joined Team Canada in earnest, winning her first gold medals at that year’s Senior Women’s Hockey Championship and Four Nations Cup with those teams respectively. In total she has competed at five ice hockey World Championships, winning gold in 2004 and 2007 and silver in 2005, 2008 and 2009, in addition to capturing gold medal at the 2006 and 2010 editions of the Winter Olympic Games. She completed a psychology degree at Dartmouth College and played for their Big Green hockey team, earning the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year, the New England Hockey Writer’s MVP Award, and captaining the team her senior year. She now plays with the Brampton Canadette-Thunder of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and brought them a championship at the end of the 2007-2008 season.
Canada