Jenny Lura is living a double life, and she loves them both. It’s probably because they both revolve around the thing she loves most – hockey.

Lura, who moved from North Vancouver to Vernon with her parents in early 2008, is a starting netminder with the NCAA Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s hockey team. In the off-season, she loves soaking up rays on the lakes around Vernon, and coaching at the Vernon Minor Hockey Camp at Priest Valley Arena.

“It’s the perfect summer town. I love to be on the lake,” said Lura, and avid wakeboarder who turns 20 in early September.

“I love it because I can come home and be excited to come home, and when I leave home I can be excited to go back to Minnesota.

“Even for winter,” added Lura, laughing.

As a sophomore last season, Lura helped the No. 2 ranked Gophers earn a 31-4-3 record and a berth to the Frozen Four semifinals. They bowed 5-4 to eventual runners-up Mercyhurst Lakers.

In 17 starts, Lura posted a 15-1-1 record with a 1.62 goals against average, the fourth best in the NCAA. She was also named U.S. College Hockey Online Defensive Player of the Week after she stopped all 34 shots to shut out the rival Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs in Western Collegiate Hockey Association conference play.

Lura, who graduated from West Vancouver’s Sentinel Secondary, says playing NCAA hockey was a big jump, but adds the only thing she could do was try to adjust as quickly as possible.

“It was kind of a shock to me when I went down there. The level of intensity is kind of unseen up here. You work so hard down there and you work every day... on the ice and in the gym.

“You have no choice but to get better, or else you’re going to get sat. The coaches look for improvement, and you’ve got to improve.”

Despite the pressure of playing in hockey-mad Minnesota, Lura says she couldn’t have chosen a better school. She says the atmosphere in the Gophers’ Ridder Arena is about as passionate as you can get about hockey without being in Canada.

“It doesn’t get much better than Minnesota,” said Lura, whose father Dave owns Excellent Edge Pro Shop in Vernon. “Our crowds are just unbelievable. You go to any other women’s hockey game in the world and you don’t gets crowds like we get.”

It is that passion for the game that Lura hopes to instill in the up-and-comers at the minor hockey camp in Vernon. Without it, she doesn’t see much point in playing.

“I just love seeing young kids that are so passionate about hockey,” said Lura, a diehard Roberto Luongo and Vancouver Canucks fan. “I love being part of camps like this. They still have the love for the game, and I love helping out.

“I’m just taking what my goalie coach (Angelo Maggio) tells me – keep the love for the game. Being a goalie is the funnest position. You can be the hero on the team every game.”

Even more, Lura is thrilled at the idea of being considered a role model for the next crop of female hockey players.

“It’s definitely an honour that people would think of me as a role model. I’m just thankful that I got the opportunity to go down to Minnesota and play the best kind of women’s hockey that there is.

“I just hope I can do whatever I can for young girls coming up to make it wherever they want to make it to.”

Lura is pursuing her business degree and hopes to enter culinary school so that she can one day open her own restaurant.