Saroya Tinker (born February 17, 1998) is a Canadian retired

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the la ...

. She last played for the

Toronto Six The Toronto Six is a professional women's ice hockey team based in Toronto playing out of Canlan Ice Sports – York. They are one of two Canadian teams in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) (formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League ...

of the

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...

(PHF), with whom she won the 2023

Isobel Cup The Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Cup, often shortened to Isobel Cup, is the championship trophy awarded annually to the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) playoff winner. It is named after Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, one of the first known women to p ...

championship.

Playing career

Tinker attended

Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic High School , motto_translation = Truth and Goodness , city = Oshawa , province = Ontario , postcode = L1J 5P5 , country = Canada , coordinates = , former_name = Oshawa Catholic High School (1965) & St. Joseph High School (1962) , schooltype = Sep ...

Oshawa Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the G ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, where she was an eight-sport high school athlete, playing on Dwyer’s ice hockey,

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

field lacrosse Field lacrosse is a full contact sport, full contact outdoor men's sport played with ten players on each team. The sport originated among indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans, and the modern rules of field lacrosse were initiall ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

, and

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

teams. A skilled athlete in multiple disciplines, she was recognized as the Junior Female Athlete of the Year in 2012–13 and 2013–14, and the Senior Female Athlete of the Year in 2015–16, in addition to being named ice hockey team

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

in 2013–14 and 2014–15, badminton team

in 2013–14 and 2014–15, basketball team MVP in 2013–14, and soccer team MVP in 2013–14. She served as

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of the ice hockey team from grades 10 through 12, captained the basketball and ultimate frisbee teams, and was assistant captain for the soccer team. Tinker’s

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

career was played with the Clarington Flames Midget AA of the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League (LLFHL) during the 2013–14 season and with the Durham West Jr. Lightning of the

Provincial Women's Hockey League The Provincial Women's Hockey League (or PWHL) is a Junior women's ice hockey league in Ontario, Canada that was founded in 2004. It is considered to be the highest level of junior women's amateur ice hockey in Ontario, and is sanctioned by Hocke ...

(PWHL) during the 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons. She helped the Jr. Lightning advance to the PWHL Final Four Weekend, registering four

goals A goal is an objective that a person or a system plans or intends to achieve. Goal may also refer to: Sport * Goal (sports), a method of scoring in many sports, or the physical structure or area where scoring occurs ** Goals, the goal frame in ...

and fourteen assists (18

points Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

) during the regular season, and seven assists in ten playoff games. Tinker played the entirety of her collegiate eligibility with the

Yale Bulldogs The Yale Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in ...

of the

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This relati ...

, scoring 32

in 122 games played. During her time at Yale, she was recognised for her physical, shutdown style of play. She was drafted fourth overall by the Metropolitan Riveters in the 2020 NWHL Draft. She signed her first professional contract with the Riveters ahead of the

2020–21 NWHL Season The 2020–21 NWHL season was the sixth season of the National Women's Hockey League in North America. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the season was held in a bubble in Lake Placid, New York, from January to February 2021, with all five tea ...

. After announcing she would be leaving the Riveters after one season, Tinker signed with the Toronto Six in June of 2021. She would spend two seasons with the Six, being the team's recipient of the Foundation award for the 2021-22 season and being named an All-Star during the 2022-23 season. The Six would go on to win the

to finish the 2022-23 season, the PHF's last. Tinker declared for the

2023 PWHL Draft The 2023 PWHL Draft was the first draft in Professional Women's Hockey League history, and took place on September 18, 2023, at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Minnesota Golden Gophers forward Taylor Heise was the first pl ...

, but went undrafted. She was invited to PWHL Ottawa's training camp, but ended up announcing her retirement on November 14, 2023, one day before the training camp opened.

International play

Tinker represented

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

at the

2017 Ball Hockey World Championship The 2017 Ball Hockey World Championship will be the 12th ball hockey world championship, and will be held in Pardubice, Czech Republic. The tournament began on 1 June 2017, and the gold medal game was played on 10 June 2017. Slovakia entered the ...

Pardubice Pardubice (; german: Pardubitz) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 89,000 inhabitants. It is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the Elbe River. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monu ...

, winning gold. Tinker played with

Team Canada Canadian National Team or Team Canada may refer to: Canada at multi-sport events * Canada at the Olympics * Canada at the Paralympics * Canada at the Commonwealth Games * Canada at the Pan American Games Canada's national sport teams * Canada me ...

at the

2016 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship The 2016 IIHF Women's U18 World Championship was the ninth Women's U18 World Championship in ice hockey. The tournament was played in St. Catharines, Canada. Top Division Preliminary round Group A Group B Relegation series ...

, winning a silver medal.

Personal life

Tinker’s father, Harvel, is Jamaican and her mother, Mandy, is Canadian-Ukrainian. She grew up in

, the eastern anchor of the

Greater Toronto Area The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York. In total, the region contains 25 urban, suburban, and rural municipalities. The Greater T ...

, with her three brothers. She has been outspoken against racism in hockey and has been willing to share her experiences as a multiethnic player in the predominantly white sport by sitting for a number of interviews and penning several essays regarding race and inclusion in hockey culture. In September 2022, Tinker signed a partnership deal with hockey equipment company

Sherwood Sherwood may refer to: Places Australia *Sherwood, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Sherwood, South Australia, a locality *Shire of Sherwood, a former local government area of Queensland *Electoral district of Sherwood, an electoral district from ...

. It is the first deal of its kind with a player from the PHF.

Career Statistics

Awards and honors

*2021 NWHL Denna Laing Award *2021 NWHL Foundation Award (Metropolitan Riveters representative) *2022 PHF Foundation Award (Toronto Six representative) *2023 PHF All-Star

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tinker, Saroya 1998 births Living people Black Canadian ice hockey players Canadian women's ice hockey defencemen Isobel Cup champions Metropolitan Riveters players Ice hockey people from Oshawa Yale Bulldogs women's ice hockey players Toronto Six players