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Extended and immediate families play a huge role in Buss’ career

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Brandi Buss had a successful first season with the U of A Pandas and earned her spot on the top defensive pairing.

By Charles Tweed

It’s always nice to win the last one.

And when the University of Alberta Pandas claimed fifth place at the CIS championship with a 5-2 win over the Manitoba Bisons, Brandi Buss of Ponoka celebrated.

Buss is in her first year as a member of the Pandas, last year she played for the Red Deer College Queens. The jump in competition from collegiate hockey to the CIS was something she noticed right away.

“It was a big transition, a lot more hard work and time gets put into it. You’re on a team where everyone has the same goal, to go for nationals,” said Buss.

The schoolwork wasn’t such a tough transition as she continues to take her bachelor of science in kinesiology at U of A.

“It was nice to have schools so close together and it’s nice to be close to family. They can come and watch my games and it’s an easy drive to get home.”

The season took many twists and turns as a team but Buss felt she rounded out some important aspects in her game.

“I grew a lot as a player and ended up being a starting line defenseman, which is huge. I developed a lot more game sense and got a lot stronger as a player,” said Buss, who admitted to being a defensive defenseman who is ‘quite rough’ at times.

Some of her success has to be attributed to her coaches growing up — specifically her father, Brad.

“I have to give a lot of credit to my dad, he coached me many years and always believed in me whether I was making it or not,” said Buss.

The father-son dynamic is one often seen in the game of hockey and in Buss’ case the relationship was no different being a female hockey player.

“You know you can’t get away with anything but then again you learn to pass along the respect that each player needs to bring. He made it quite easy to separate from a coach on the ice to a dad off the ice,” said Buss.

“It did drive me to work hard and at the end of the day he was always honest whether I had a good game or not. He was always down to earth about what I needed to improve on and the honest criticism really helped.”

Buss admitted the trust and relationship she has with her father, both as a dad and a coach, allows her to have an extra set of eyes on the game.

“It’s little things. Even before I say it he’ll know what I was mad about during the game whether I think I should have pinched there — it’s never negative — it’s in the past and learn from it next time,” said Buss.

The relationship she’s cultivated with her Mom and Dad regarding the game has competition now though.

“We call each other, because we’re Pandas, our PH family, P-H-AM- I-L-Y because we spend so much time together. You think you’re going to get sick of them but as soon as you’re away from them for a day you miss them,” said Buss talking about her Panda extended family.

The team will try to build on those relationships next year, as Buss believes they should have a strong team.

“We are keeping all of our defensemen and goalies so we’re going to have a really strong back end. We have a lot of young forwards who improved a lot and I think we’re going to do quite well. I’m excited to see it,” said Buss.