Ask any hockey player you know – it’s never an easy decision to call it quits on the game you love, let alone giving up on your childhood dream of one day wearing the Team Canada jersey.

But for Nicole Gifford, the time was now. Having played the game since she was four years old, Gifford knew it would be hard to make a living playing hockey. But she decided to give it a try last season, lacing up the skates for HC Lugano of the women’s National League A in Switzerland.

After finishing as the team’s second-leading scorer thanks to a two-point-per-game average in the regular season, the Ennismore, Ont., native led HC Lugano to the league championship.

But despite her success overseas, she knew it was time to go out on top and pursue her second dream: becoming a doctor.

Now 22, Gifford surprised her family and friends by enrolling at Saint James School of Medicine – located on, of all places, the small island of Anguilla in the Caribbean.

“Of course I’ll miss the game. I do think however, because of my educational commitment, it’s what’s best for me at this time,” she says in an email from her new home. “For the past 19 years I looked forward to the end of summer as I knew a new hockey season would be starting up. [This time around] it was different as I experienced excitement for a new dream, a new journey, one which didn’t include hockey.”

I remember my first time going out to Calgary and feeling so privileged to be a part of that whole program and to be able to train and compete with so many great players.”

Saying that hockey has been the centerpiece of Gifford’s life is certainly no understatement. The first female player to make the Novice AAA boys team in Peterborough, Ont., she got plenty of local attention early in her career.

It was when she started playing with girls at the Bantam level, though, that the forward started turning heads on the national scene.

In 2008, at the age of 16, Gifford represented Ontario Blue at the National Women’s Under-18 Championship in Napanee, Ont., helping that team to its first-ever semifinal berth, and an eventual fourth-place finish.

One year later, she wore an ‘A’ with Ontario Red, and chipped in with a goal and three assists in five games to help Red to gold in Surrey, B.C., with a victory in the first all-Ontario gold medal game.

“There’s always something about winning a championship and putting that gold medal around your neck that just never gets old,” Gifford says of the U18 gold – the moment she describes as the highlight of her career.

In between her nationals appearances, Gifford earned an invite to Canada’s National Women’s Team selection camp in the summer of 2009, and despite not cracking the final roster, she remains confident her experience was not only beneficial to her career as a player, but also as a person.

“I remember my first time going out to Calgary and feeling so privileged to be a part of that whole program and to be able to train and compete with so many great players,” she says.

“Not many players that don’t make the team can say that their experience was a positive one. But that camp and process allowed me to grow so much in the long run; it taught me dedication, respect, commitment and, most importantly, that although things don’t always work out as planned, life still goes on and you need to be able to pick yourself up and keep striving to be the best person you can be.”

While it is obvious Gifford values the opportunity she was given to potentially wear the maple leaf, she still admits that having worked so hard to come so close to realizing her childhood dream was tough.

But she still feels she can do her country proud in other ways, and through hockey.

“Professionally, I aspire to be involved in sports medicine and perhaps one day assume the role of team physician for an elite women’s hockey program,” she says. “I also plan to volunteer my time with minor hockey organizations as a way of giving back to those younger generations that are trying to reach the same goals that I once had.”