Spokane sisters join EWU women’s hockey

By Kyle Franko and Brad Wall

Growing up two self-professed “tomboys,” Melissa and Vanessa Vargas always preferred G.I. Joe to Barbie. Watching “The Mighty Ducks” started a love affair with hockey that manifested itself in skating for the EWU women’s hockey club team.

Vanessa, who joined the team last November, uses a powerful, lower body for strength and skating speed to launch attacks on the opposing goal and is not shy about showing her gleeful emotions after scoring.

Goal scoring is her specialty. In the team’s last game, she had her first hat trick as an Eagle, when EWU stomped the Seattle Women’s Hockey Club 7 to 1 on Jan. 22.

Vanessa – with a semblance similar to a powerful fullback in football – recruited her older sister, Melissa, in January to play goalie. Melissa, the older and quieter of the two, made her first start Jan. 13 versus the Spokane Women, a tightly contested 1-goal loss.

According to head coach Pat Hanlon, the Vargas sisters bring experience, knowledge and wisdom to the club that they have acquired from playing hockey for 12 years.

“They definitely bring a new dimension to us,” said Hanlon. “They’ve got a lot of experience. The other kids definitely feed off of what they’re doing – their energy.”

Junior forward Becky Fullerton describes Vanessa’s game on the ice as physical and fast.

“She’s like a bowling ball out there,” Fullerton said.

While Vanessa has been inserting her will offensively, Melissa found her place hunkered down in front of the goal, gloving saves and blocking pucks. In her two starts for EWU, she has allowed two goals per game. In comparison, the Eagle’s defense had never allowed fewer than three goals in one game the entire season.

According to Fullerton, she brings a confidence to the team defensively.

Today, the sisters are valued by their teammates, but that was not the case when they played for the Spokane Women’s Hockey team. Fullerton remembers Vanessa, in particular, when she suited up for Spokane.

“I didn’t like them very much,” said Fullerton. “I didn’t like them at all. Actually, none of the team really liked Vanessa. We had a stigma towards her. We just thought she was kind of a dirty player.”

Once Vanessa and Melissa donned Eagle red and white jerseys though, the benefits of the Vargas sisters were clear.

“It’s one of those things where you hate them, being on the other team, but you love them being on your team,” Fullerton said.

The Eastern players may remember viewing the Vargas sisters in a negative light, but Vanessa had her own opinion of EWU women’s hockey before joining, too.

Playing Eastern was a frustrating experience, and according to Vanessa, they were more interested in being physical rather than trying to play as a unit.

In fact, Vanessa’s previous teammates discouraged her from joining EWU’s ranks.

“People just doubted them,” said Vanessa. “They didn’t think they were a very good team. They didn’t really think they were the type of team that they would want to play with.”

But for a couple of girls who originally discovered the game of hockey by watching “The Mighty Ducks” – a movie with a premise surrounding a team of underdogs – Vanessa only saw an opportunity to help Eastern improve.

“This team, [once] I got to know them, they seriously have commitment,” Vanessa said.

For Melissa, the decision to join was easy, “If you love playing the game, you just take every opportunity that you can to get on that ice.”

For over a decade the two have been taking every chance to play hockey whenever they can. It began after their dad noticed his daughters’ infatuation with the “The Mighty Ducks” and took them to the ice rink.

“He puts on our first skates, we step on the ice and we literally can skate, like, there’s no falling – except for stopping. Stopping was a completely different story,” said Vanessa.

In those early years Melissa and Vanessa said they were either playing hockey, watching hockey or thinking about hockey. They never stopped.

“When we scored our first goal, that was just amazing,” Vanessa said.

Melissa added, “We literally jumped on our coach.”

The Vargas sisters’ enthusiasm for the game is obvious. For Vanessa, hockey is her sanctuary.

“It’s where I can think,” said Vanessa. “It’s where all my problems go away. Just give me an hour … on the ice and I’ll be all good. I’ll literally just be happy for that moment.”