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B C B U S I N E S S . C A
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2 0 24 A d a m B l a s b e r g
QUALITY TIME
first year that women's hockey
was in the Olympics, so I think
that had a big influence on
people joining."
The establishment of the
Professional Women's Hockey
League in 2023 marks another
turning point for women in the
sport. "When I played, it was
like, maybe you'll make college
hockey and then you'll be done
by 22. Whereas on the men's
side, you're only getting started
at 22," says Korenic. "The
introduction of the professional
league has proven that if you
give women a venue to play in
and you give them good broad
casting and you make every
thing around it really solid, the
fans come. They've been selling
out stadiums consistently."
It's exciting to see more
women on ice, but coaching
Natalie Korenic has
been playing ice hockey since
she was five years old, but,
throughout all those years, she
never had a female head coach
to look up to. "It was mostly
dads," says the communica
tions director of Vancouver
based Aspect Biosystems, who,
when she was growing up, saw
her own parents serve on the
board of the Richmond Ravens
Female Hockey Association.
"Not to take anything away
from them, but it's different
when you see someone on the
bench who is more like you."
The sport has evolved over
the years—when Korenic start
ed playing, there were only
around six girls her age playing
for the Ravens, and "now you
go out and you see the rink full
of little fiveyearolds skat
ing around." That change is
partly due to the Olympics, she
guesses: "The year I started
playing [1998] was actually the
ICE BREAKER
How communications director and hockey coach
Natalie Korenic stickhandles her professional
obligations and personal endeavours
By Rushmila Rahman
W E E K E N D W A R R I O R
Natalie Korenic is the
communications direc-
tor for Vancouver-based
Aspect Biosystems, a
3D-bioprinting com-
pany that crafts tissue
therapeutics to help
treat diseases. Its team
has grown from six
in 2015 to 90 in 2024,
and founder Tamer
Mohamed was named
a BCBusiness 30 Under
30 winner in 2018 and
an EY Entrepreneur of
the Year in 2023 based
on the headway his
company is making in
the health-tech sector.
WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT
has lagged in comparison.
For Korenic, the decision to
coach with the organization
she grew up playing in came
naturally—and early. Over the
last 18 years, she has trained
almost every age group in the
Ravens system (which ranges
from 5 to 20). She was named
BFL Canada Female Coach of
the Year by Hockey Canada in
2020 and currently works with
