Maine Hockey Journal

Girls’ high school hockey thriving despite more co-op teams

Defending state champions Lewiston has joined with Oak Hill and Monmouth to form a co-op team this season for girls' ice hockey. It's one of 10 co-op teams playing girls' hockey this season (PHOTO: Andrew Gaumont)

Defending state champions Lewiston has joined with Oak Hill and Monmouth to form a co-op team this season for girls’ ice hockey. It’s one of 10 co-op teams playing girls’ hockey this season (PHOTO: Andrew Gaumont)

In nearly a decade since the Maine Principals Association began sponsoring girls’ ice hockey, the sport has undergone a transformation during a period of growing pains.

Still a new concept in the state, girls’ hockey has seen growth over the last several years and gained the interest of quite a few young female athletes in the state.

In a sport that relies much less on physicality and more on skill and finesse, Assistant Executive Director of the Maine Principals Association, Mike Burnham, said he sees growth on a yearly basis in the quality and number of schools participating in the sport.

“I think that the level of play in girls’ ice hockey continues to improve every year and that the athletes that participate have a positive experience,” said Burnham.

In the eight years that girls’ hockey has been sponsored by the MPA, the state has had an all-time high of 17 teams according to Burnham. With 16 teams playing in the upcoming season, more schools are participating than ever before.

The increase in schools has led to more girls on the ice because they’re able to form cooperative teams. Only six of the 16 teams are single school programs, which raises a question on whether schools are coming together to create a team for reasons of consolidation or higher involvement.

“I think some programs were so weak that they started combining with other schools to make the program solid,” said Edward Little’s athletic director Dan Deshaies. “I know when we started out (combining) with Leavitt, they had eighteen players, and we had four. We didn’t have enough to run a team, but now we have 18 girls from Edward Little alone that participate so now the program is thriving together. We have a hockey community between us, Leavitt, and now Poland. We know we’re going to be solid for a long period of time.”

Cooperative teams are growing in the state, and it seems to be a result of both interest from more schools and consolidating to make the sport available to more female athletes.

Defending state champions, Lewiston High School went 20-0-1 undefeated last season to become only the second team in the eight-year history of high school girls’ hockey in Maine to win two state titles.

Due to the loss of several seniors that graduated, Lewiston joined with Monmouth and Oak Hill, who are introducing girls’ hockey to their female students, to form a co-op team.

“Girls’ ice hockey is very spread out,” said Lewiston’s athletic director Jason Fuller. “You don’t have a huge pocket anywhere, and, unfortunately, girls’ ice hockey is cyclic in nature. There are times where you have a lot of girls with a small group up and coming. Because of how it has developed, I think that it has lent itself to more co-op situations.”

While combining schools to create hockey teams is a good thing for girls’ hockey, there are still issues with putting a team on the ice. The cost of the game itself, as Scarborough’s head coach Caitlin D’Amour and the MPA’s Assistant Executive Director Mike Burnham, points out, is one of the main problems that face athletes and parents.

According to D’Amour, the lack of ice rinks in the state and the increased cost of ice time is consistently an issue.

“In the greater Portland area you have about a dozen teams needing practice and game ice with only four rinks costing over $200 an hour plus equipment, skate sharpening, and travel costs,” D’Amour said. “It’s expensive for schools that are a reason families are experiencing an increased fee to play hockey.”

“I think one of the major obstacles that girls’ ice hockey is facing is the cost of the sport,” said Mike Burnham. “While most schools are very supportive of trying to provide the opportunity for a few athletes from the school having a chance to play on a girls’ ice hockey team, very few schools are able to support the program financially.”

Despite an increase in the number of girls playing ice hockey at the high school level, there are still areas of the state that lack any high school program for girls’ hockey, especially within the Bangor area.

A girls’ club team, the Penobscot Ice Breakers, was formed for high school-age players from grades eight through 12 to give them experience playing against other girls’ programs in the state.

Currently, the closest program is Winslow/Erskine Academy.

“There are no high school teams in this area, and the girls who play on boys varsity teams don’t get much ice time,” Ellen White told the Bangor Daily News. “We want to give them a good high school girls hockey experience.

There are players from eight to 10 high schools, and they come from as far away as Waterville, Northeast Harbor, and Presque Isle.

White told the BDN that she would like to see a girls’ high school co-operative team in the future but felt it might be difficult until the number of schools that can form a co-op team is increased to more than three. Still she is hoping he Ice Breakers program can generate more interest in girls’ hockey, paving the way for a co-op team in the future.

The talent of girls’ hockey is evident in the Portland Junior Pirates recent championship for the Girls’ U19 squad, which boasted some of the best players from girls’ high school programs around the state.

Danita Story played for Greely. Elizabeth Gross and Alyssa Hulst, daughter of former Portland Pirates captain and current Cheverus girls’ head coach, Kent Hulst, played for Berwick and Paige Fontaine, Allison Frechette, and Lauren DeBlois were all members of the state champion Lewiston Blue Devils. Sarah Hutcheon and Martina St. Angelo’s played for the Falmouth Yachtsmen, who were runners-up in the state title game.

Girls’ hockey in the state is also gaining further interest and leading to girls playing beyond high school. Currently, the University of Maine has three women from Maine on it’s women’s hockey roster that played high school hockey in the state.

More schools have expressed an interest in joining, and young female athletes continue to more opportunities to participate.

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