Jan 15, 2010 - 04:30 AM

By Shawn Cayley

WHITBY -- Many young athletes grow up often dreaming of the possibility of representing their country.

Many only have one road to travel though.

Whitby's Natalie Babony, a former hockey player at Yale University, had two and one has helped her reach the pinnacle of the sport. She will represent Slovakia at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month as a member of the women's hockey team.

"It's surreal. It really is. I can't even describe it," Babony says of being Olympic bound. "What goes through my mind? It's not reality yet. Maybe it will set in when I get there, but right now I can't conceive how amazing this is going to be."

Babony, now 26, is a dual citizen. Her parents, Anton and Olinka, were born and raised in Slovakia, only moving to Canada in their 20s, where they would settle and raise their own family.

While Babony considers herself as Canadian as anyone, her Slovakian background has always played a big part in her life and is something she is understandably quite proud of.

"I grew up in Canada and I am very much a Canadian. I learned how to skate here and it's very much a part of who I am," she says. "But, you know, my parents are from Slovakia and we grew up in a very traditional Slovak household, speaking Slovak growing up, following the traditions they have. It is a unique situation and it's a fortunate situation."

Her first foray into representing Slovakia came as a 16-year-old, while more recently, Babony, a 5-foot-4 forward, played with the team at last year's World Championships in Austria and the Mountain Cup tournament in Switzerland.

The event in Switzerland served as her last audition prior to the announcement of the roster.

When the list of 18 skaters and three goalies was finally released Dec. 29, both Babony, who was in New York at the time, and her mother, home in Whitby, were frantically searching the internet for confirmation. When her mother came across the information and called Babony, her initial reaction was one of relief.

"To want something so badly and to have spent so much time, it was almost like not going to Vancouver wasn't an option," says Babony, who will face Canada in her first game of the preliminary round Feb. 13. "It couldn't have happened that way. Do you know what I mean? It was like, 'I have to go.' I don't remember wanting anything more."

As interesting as the nationality aspect of her background is, Babony's hockey background is just as compelling.

She grew up playing women's hockey locally and in Toronto, and played on the boys' hockey team at Father Leo J. Austin in Grade 9. Then it was off to Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire through the end of high school.

Following that, she took a year off school and played for the Telus Lightning (now Durham West) out of Ajax before heading to Yale.

"It was really great that I took that year off and played in the area," she says of her experience with the Lightning. "That was helpful and led me right into my university experience."