Danielle Lopez knows all the words in English to "O Canada," but she still has a little work to do on the French version. It is the anthem she will be singing every game now because former Danvers High and Tufts College softball sensation is a member of the Canadian National Team and is playing in the Canada Cup in Surrey, British Columbia. Lopez is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, where she was born. She lived in Montreal for the first two years of her life.
Now she has returned to her roots to play for the highly competitive Canadian Women's National Team. She started training for this adventure back in January and traveled to Toronto in June for the first of a series of evaluations to determine who would be picked for the team. Lopez passed the first two rounds of evaluation and was invited to the training compound in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, for the final selection.
"I finished my career at Tufts feeling as though there would never be a chance for me to play again," Lopez said. "That's the sort of message you get, given the little support for the USA Pro League, which only has about four teams, and considering the number of athletes in the sport around the nation. You kind of get lost in the process of moving onto a career unless you find yourself playing on ESPN during the D-1 College World Series.
"In Canada, there are plenty of senior leagues and the national program that allow players out of college to continue doing what they love. When I was abroad (a semester in Barcelona, Spain), I was fortunate to play in one of those leagues. I made a lot of friends and relearned what it means to play the sport for the love of it. When I found out Canada might have an option for me, I thought why not give it a shot. I was at a point in my life when I wasn't sure what to do career-wise; still working with Tufts softball and Raiders softball."
Lopez found it exciting to train hard for this opportunity and began learning a lot about the philosophy and values of the Canadian team by talking with head coach Mark Smith and a friend who played on the 2010 team.
"Canada has been such a huge part of my life ever since I can remember," she said. "I visit family just outside of Toronto for holidays and summers ever year. My mother is the only one of her six siblings living in the U.S. It all just seemed to come together, and after stepping on the field on Day 1 in Brampton for the first selection camp, I knew this program was something special."
Top-notch competition
There will be one more cut after the Canada Cup, which wraps up on Saturday, and Lopez knows she must make the most of her opportunities to earn a place. The 2006 NECAC Player of the Year is an outstanding second baseman, but on this elite squad she knows she has to stand out as a utility player wherever she is asked to play.
"The level of competition is very high," she said. "Not only are all these players true athletes, but many of them come with a huge amount of knowledge about the sport and their opponents. Many of the returning players have gone to the Olympics or other international competition, and their ability to break down the sport into all of its components is unreal.
"The talent is the best Canada has to offer, and all but one played at American colleges. The hardest part about making the team for me is not knowing anything about anything. All the others know one another from either playing with or against each other on the Junior National team or provincial squads. The softball world up here is a bit smaller than the States, so getting into the swing of things and learning how everything is run has been difficult for me."
The Canadian National team is equivalent to an Olympic team, but unfortunately softball is no longer part of the summer Olympics. The Canadian team will take part in competitions worldwide, including the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the fall.
Lopez was amazed at the number of fans who come out to watch the games in Western Canada.
"In Whitehorse, when we had our six game inter-squad series, we had about 80 fans each night," Lopez said. "I don't think there is much else going on in Whitehorse, so it's exciting for the locals to come out to watch us. Now that we're in the Canada Cup, there is another tournament for 16-U and 19-U going on simultaneously, so the kids and their parents also support our team. When we played Venezuela, we had between 200 and 250 fans."
Lopez said the team plays on all kinds of fields, some very nice, well-kept complexes and some local town fields, for practices. She found out the hard way that being from Boston isn't exactly popular in British Columbia — especially since the disappointment stemming from the Bruins beating their Canucks to win the Stanley Cup last month. When she said she lived in the Boston area during player interviews, she was loudly booed by more than 120 kids at the Canadian team's camp.
"It was pretty funny because I didn't even think about that type of reaction," she said. "It was all fun and games; the team laughed, as did many of the parents. I'm sure it would have been a similar thing if someone was at a camp in Boston and said they were from New York.
"Most people I have talked to about the Cup seem to still be pretty embarrassed about the riots. They seem to have accepted the Bruins' win, given there are a number of Canadians and in particular BC Canadians on the (Bruins) roster."
Last week, Team Canada lost to USA in extra innings, 3-1, in game four of the Canada Cup. Canada had only three hits, and Lopez got one of them — an RBI double in the second inning for the lone run scored. She also worked a walk in the seventh and got to second base, but they couldn't bring her home.
For Lopez, the opportunity to be part of the Canadian National Team is something she has dreamed about and doesn't take a minute for granted.
"I dreamed about being on the Olympic team when I was growing up, and it's disappointing there is no longer that chance for young softball players, but having the opportunity to be on this roster for however long and playing in whatever tournaments is my dream come true."
