Not your average goalie: Meet Mikayla Demaiter, the 'world’s hottest hockey player' (PHOTOS)

As with the majority of Canadians, Mikayla Demaiter was in love with ice hockey and dreamed of achieving great things in a sport that is almost sacred in her homeland.

The 20-year-old played for the Bluewater Hawks in Ontario’s Provincial Women's Hockey League, but firmly defied the perceptions of hockey goalies as burly toothless giants.    

It was that stereotype-smashing image that helped Demaiter when she decided to call time on her hockey career and switch to modelling, having set pulses racing with some of her bikini shots.

She announced her official retirement from the game more than a year ago, explaining that “it’s time to turn the page and move to the next chapter.”

“Dear Hockey, It is time to say goodbye. It is time to turn the page and move to the next chapter of my life, for the first time you will not be my number one focus. I want to thank you for the places we’ve gone together,” Demaiter wrote.

Since then, her newly acquired modelling role has brought Demaiter far more fame than her prowess on the ice, with her Instagram page amassing more than 232,000 followers.

The former player, who’s been nicknamed ‘the world’s hottest goalie’, often shares pictures of herself wearing a bikini, triggering praise from her followers.

The bombshell blonde has already earned contracts with cosmetic and skin-care brands, who promote their products on her page.