A December 24 story in The Hants Journal describes how Yumi Miyano, a sixteen-year-old from Fukuoka Prefecture, has been welcomed onto Canadian ice. The youngster, who had a passion for hockey from an early age, made the move to the sport’s birthplace when she learned that she could play there and improve her English at the same time. She joined an exchange program at Avon View High School in Falmouth, Nova Scotia, and is in her second year with the Avalanche hockey team. Miyano will graduate next year and says that she now feels like a Canadian, thanks to her close relationship with her classmates and her homestay family.