GEE, Eleanor Rose

IN A SMALL ART GALLERY on Richmond Hill some years back, words from Nellie Gee's obituary slid across old footage of her playing ice hockey.

She played against the boys / And won /

Not far from there five years earlier, 15 year-old Nellie Gee passed under a guard of honour, a colonnade of hockey sticks held by teenage teammates.

Another gallery installation called Fallen Angel used parts of her journal and photographs of the angel the family had made and placed in the backyard after her death.

Read me / I'm Dead / I didn't mean to fall /

They were among twenty items in the exhibition Pieces, Suicide the Aftermath that the Gees and other families who lost a child or sibling to suicide created with artists from stART Community Art. Gee's father Tony said the pieces were both tributes and a display that he hoped would help lift the silence in the community surrounding suicide.

Born Eleanor Rose Gee on December 11th 1989 to Tony and Katherine in the seaside town of Mornington near Melbourne, Nell joined her sisters Alexandra and Elizabeth, and in 1992 moved to the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. She attended Camberwell Primary, then Carey Baptist Grammar where she competed in the Carey hockey and rowing teams.

Gee took up ice hockey in the Victorian leagues with the Melbourne Jets club, playing Junior B and the women's and Senior C comps. "Had anyone told Nellie Gee there was ice hockey training at four in the morning" wrote Olwyn Conrau in a 2005 obituary, "she would have been the first one at the rink, waiting impatiently for the doors to open. Nellie lived and breathed the game and it was nothing for her to train at six in the morning and then play two games of ice hockey a few hours later. While everybody gasped for breath, Nellie would be flying down the ice and jostling in the corners. Such was her drive".

Gee won the Jets Best Defense player in 2003 and Most Valuable Player for the Mavericks in the Summer comp in 2004. One of a handful of young women who continued to play at contact level, she trained like a professional, and dreamed of going to the Olympics in 2010. Discharged from hospital in October 2004, she represented Victoria in the national women's championships that year, the McKowen Trophy in Sydney, winning Bronze and Rookie of the Tournament. She received an invite to the National Women's Team camp, which prepares young players representing Australia for the IIHF World Women's Championships.

An impact player, in her short life Gee had an impact on all who knew her. She earned high regard from her teammates because she never sought glory, and she never played as an individual. She was the ultimate team player. Even in her rookie season, her teammates made sure the puck stayed on her stick to help her score that first goal she so desperately sought. Even the opposition hoped she would score, and she did. That game puck meant a lot to Gee, not only because it was a goal she won through determination. But also because her team's admiration for her as a player helped win it.

Nell knew the defenseman's code. She accepted whatever penalty came her way, including third man in for protecting her teammates from an aggressor. She had your back, it was second nature for her, and she took the punishment, even though it upset her to miss a game. "She was like a little terrier," said state women's team manager, Shirley Geraghty, in 2006. "She never gave up, she'd go all in. She'd get on the rink and just fire. It was early days but she would have been in the top echelon of players".

A girl who could light up everyone's face with her distinctive humour, even at fifteen Gee touched the lives of everyone she came in contact with. The other battle, the dark shadow she fought, was clinical depression from the age of barely 14. This largely hidden epidemic took her life just one year later. The pain over, wrote Conrau, "now there is no dark ceiling to stop this Jet from soaring".

Australian ice hockey lost a future champion, but Nell Gee's death on January 9th 2005 was not in vain because she had lived a life that many only dream of, however short. Her energy and passion for her beloved sport was inspirational, her character motivational for one so young, especially with her back to the wall.

After Nellie died, the Melbourne Jets created the Nellie Gee award in their junior grade. Today, the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League call their Rookie of the Year award the Nellie Gee. Voted on by each team for players who are under 20 years, imports are not eligible. Among the girls who have followed in Nell's footsteps are Courtney Poole, Marnie Pullin, Olivia Last, Keesha Atkins, Tiffany Samian-Velling, Christina Julien.