HIGH SCHOOL PREVIEW : Oilers’ Cowie Is a Real Gamer : High schools: Huntington Beach senior’s ice hockey and roller hockey skills have helped make her a better field hockey player.

Heather Cowie lives to play hockey. Whether in ice skates, in-line skates or cleats, if there’s a game to be found, she’ll find it.

The starting center midfielder for Huntington Beach High’s field hockey team, Cowie, a 16-year-old senior, has hockey in her blood. Her father, Brian, is from Winnipeg, Canada, and played semipro ice hockey.

An only child, she became the recipient of his knowledge and love for the game.

“I guess I’m the boy he didn’t have,” Cowie said, laughing.

Cowie remembers going to King games with her father. He began teaching her about the sport when she was young, and by the time she was 9, she was playing roller hockey at the local YMCA.

When she entered high school, she said, somebody told her about field hockey.

“I had no idea what it was,” Cowie said. “They told me it was like hockey and soccer combined. Since I had played soccer too, I decided to try it.”

Cowie also had been a figure skater when she was younger, so she took the natural step a year later and began playing ice hockey.

With her father’s guidance and advice, Cowie has steadily climbed in the female amateur ranks.

This year, she was selected to the California 19-and-under team, which finished second at the national tournament last year. This year’s nationals will be in Detroit this spring.

In July, she was among 200 players invited to try out for the junior national team. She and five other forwards advanced from that first tryout in Lakewood to one in Seattle, where she was one of four players to make the cut.

She then attended the final tryout in late July, also in Seattle, after which the field was to be reduced from 50 to the final four. Cowie said she expects to hear in two or three weeks if she made the final cut.

Whether or not she makes the junior national team, Cowie sees ice hockey in her future.

“I feel more confident with my ice hockey skills,” said Cowie, who would like to attend the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “I hope I can get a scholarship and, of course, my biggest goal is the Olympics.”

For the next two months, Cowie will spend more than 30 hours a week between ice hockey and field hockey practice. It’s draining, she said, but worth it.

Field hockey has greatly improved her stamina on the ice, she said, and ice hockey helps her with playing angles and being physical on the field.

“I’m used to going after it and attacking,” Cowie said. “It gets a little brutal sometimes. But in field hockey we are supposed to back off a little.

“Some of the other girls give me a hard time if I hit them too hard, but it’s hard for me not to.”

This season, Cowie hopes to lead Huntington Beach to the Sunset League championship and the Tournament of Champions title, which is field hockey’s equivalent of a Southern Section title.

Most of her teammates return from last year’s Tournament of Champions runners-up, including junior Alicia Santiago, a second-team all-league selection at wing, and senior goalie Rona Smith.

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To win the Sunset League title, Huntington Beach will have to go through Edison, which last year won its fourth Tournament of Champions title. The Chargers graduated leading scorer and team captain Ann Wiles, but defender and Tournament of Champions MVP Karen Corbett returns. Newport Harbor is another strong contender for the league title, especially with the return of Coach Sharon Wolfe, who took off last season for personal reasons. First-team all-leaguer Bitta Jansma, a senior, is back at wing and senior Susan Lear returns in goal. Wolfe is also excited about three newcomers up from the junior varsity: midfielders Kim Erickson and Megan Moss and forward Elizabeth Evans. Marina returns eight starters, including senior Melissa White, the league’s most valuable goalie last year.