The soccer season never ends for Emily Gillet. Between outdoor soccer in the fall and indoor in the winter, Gillet, when not in a classroom, is in the net. The London native enjoys playing between the posts.

“I play a lot of sports, soccer is one on the side, but a better question is why did I become a goalie?” she said. “At 13 I became lazy and the least running position is goalie.”

Gillet has a long soccer background, going back some 19 years including club play with the St. Thomas Soccer Club's women's premier team. What does she want to do with her future? Well, she wants to be a police officer.

“I was in the United States before I came here, and I am going back to Western to finish my last year of my criminology BA next year.”

Gillet shared that soccer has not always been fun and games and it has been tough to keep going.

“My teammates keep me going. Being a goalie you're the only one in your position, if I quit or I don't want to do it I am letting down my team. I want the team to succeed so if the goalie lacks, the team starts to lack. I don't quit, I stick with it until the end. If I am lacking motivation I have great teammates that support me. As a goalie if I let in a goal I feel like crap, so I have great people who support me and bring me up when I am down,” she said.

“I do get tired of playing soccer. It's frustrating because being a goalie you are only playing one side of the field. You don't move and you're not running around. It's frustrating not helping the other side of the field. In the other sports I play I can help out the defence and the offence. There was a point where it was work and not fun. You got to have the right coaching staff and the right teammates that will keep it from being work. I played in the States my first year, and I didn't want to play anymore because I lost the fun. If you can't find fun in the sport you shouldn't play it anymore.”

Most athletes are very superstitious, some pregame rituals ranging anywhere from not washing a piece of clothing you feel is lucky, or listening to the same song every warm up. For Gillet her pregame rituals include listening to her psych-up music on her iPod, giving two squirts of water to each goalie glove, and then doing her warm up routine with the other goalie. Whether or not this helped earn the women's soccer team at Fanshawe a silver medal at nationals, and to also be the first OCAA team to ever reach the national finals does not matter. What does matter is that the chemistry of the team is what brought the girls together.

“My favourite thing is the team camaraderie; it's always nice to play a game you love, especially with the people you like playing with; especially at Fanshawe because we have a great team.”