Skylar Fontaine finds purpose and a job in Switzerland: ZSC champion shooter now becomes a lawyer

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“I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.” Skylar Fontaine’s eyes widen when she enters the showroom of the ice hockey store in Kloten. Right at the entrance, a window pane offers a view of one of the most unusual places in Swiss sport – the “Professional Goalie School” – a 50 square meter “cool box” in which winter reigns all year round, a small ice surface is prepared and there is a goal. Here, goalkeepers can make shots and work on their technique under professional supervision for a fee.

Skylar Fontaine, who everyone calls Sky, is not a goalkeeper. She is one of the best defenders in the PostFinance Women’s League and was also the ZSC Lions’ top scorer last season. From this year she would be recognized as PostFinance Top Scorer. Above all, she wrote a little piece of Swiss sports history last spring. In the decisive fifth game of the play-off final against Bomo Thun, she shot the ZSC Lions to the title in extra time. In doing so, she has achieved something that was previously reserved for three men’s greats from the ZSC: Adrien Plavsic (2000), Morgan Samuelsson (2001) and Steve McCarthy (2012). Skylar became a master marksman.

“And I knew: now I have to shoot.”

Six months later, she still remembers it as if it were yesterday: “I was standing on the blue line. Sinja Leemann gave the puck to me. And I knew: now I have to shoot. I pulled the trigger and the next thing I saw was the puck in the net.” “Amazing!” is how she describes the feeling she felt then: “Amazing! In the locker room we were committed to the game and talking about how much we wanted this win.

It was the first title for the 25-year-old American from the Boston area – and confirmation that it was the right decision to leave her home country and settle in Zurich after completing her law studies at Northeastern University in Boston to start a new adventure. adventures.

The decisive factor was her friendship with Alina Müller, perhaps the best Swiss ice hockey player, who also studied at Northeastern University and shared a room with Skylar for three years: “She is a wonderful person and the main reason I am in Zurich now.” Irony of fate: Müller was drafted No. 3 overall in the draft of the new Professional Women’s Hockey League in Boston last week – and will move to North America at the end of fall: “I wish her the best of luck,” says Skylar Fontaine: ” Alina has everything it takes to triumph in this competition.”

These are the words of a woman who could also compete there, but has chosen a different model of life. She has been working in Zurich for a month at the renowned law firm Homburger and is gaining important practical experience on her way to becoming a lawyer. The 100 percent job demands a lot from her in addition to sports: “At work it is just like at the ice rink. Only those who give their all can triumph.” Soon, not only will the goalkeepers of Swiss ice hockey be shaking from Skylar Fontaine, but also all kinds of men and women in the courtroom.

She initially decided to become involved with the ZSC Lions because she also wanted to enjoy life outside the ice rink. In college, her days practically consisted of hockey and studying. Other freedoms remained in Switzerland. So she and her American colleague Katie Cipra fulfilled a great wish and looked around Europe: “We saw the Rhine Falls, were in Milan, Paris, Amsterdam and Lisbon. And we went to Oktoberfest. How nice – also because we happened to meet colleagues from the US.”

Your friend is also a ZSC player

The fact that she feels comfortable in Zurich also has to do with her social environment: “The teammates on the team have become real friends.” And Skylar also found happiness in love: she has been living with her boyfriend, the ZSC player Justin Sigrist, in an apartment in Zurich-Altstetten for several months: “Everything is just right,” she says with shining eyes. Above all, she likes the “Swiss lifestyle”: “Everything is more relaxed here than in the US – people take more time and I feel relaxed too.” At home she was always ‘on the go’ and hardly took a deep breath. She can really enjoy life in Switzerland.

Just thinking about her loved ones in the US makes her a little wistful: “I come from a real ice hockey family. My brother Gunnarwolfe was drafted by the Nashville Predators – and my sister Alex, like me, played at the highest level in college. It’s great that all three of them can develop so much in their favorite sport.

She thinks it is a pity that women in ice hockey can hardly make a living from the sport anywhere – not even in Zurich, where the players usually receive ‘only’ expense allowances and success bonuses: ‘We still have to work – and together with training and playing, the tension sometimes becomes very large.” But Sky certainly doesn’t want to complain: she loves life too much and is too proud when she can walk into the large Swiss Life Arena: “I consider it a great appreciation that the club allows us to play in this beautiful stadium.”

And how long does she plan to stay in Switzerland? When asked this question, she laughs heartily – and essentially plays the joke: “Everything is open. I take what life offers me.” And you clearly feel that: Skylar Fontaine has found a new home in Switzerland. And she may stay forever.

Source : Blick