Girls Take Over the Rink Event ‘Planting the Seed’ for Players in New Mexico
Anyone at Genoveva Chavez Community Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Feb. 1 would have noticed a difference upon closer inspection of the locker rooms. Each had a sign or was decorated and turned into a girls locker room for the Girls Take Over the Rink event.
It might seem like a minor thing, but there’s a significance to it.
“Because we’re so used to girls getting shoved into closets and janitor’s closets and bathrooms and other places,” said Chantielle Hanson, president of the Los Alamos Hockey Association. “It was very fun to have all the locker rooms be for girls, and it just be all girls everywhere.”
The event featured about an hour of clinics and scrimmages for the four age groups — 8U, ages 9-10, ages 11-12 and ages 13-19.
Kristina Lee, goalie coach for the new University of New Mexico women’s hockey team, also recruited a group of female coaches to help players on the ice.
“It was good to have somebody at that level, at the college level, to come out and in essence pay it forward to help young players enjoy the experience that she enjoyed when she was growing up as an up-and-coming hockey player,” said Ted Skinner, representative for the Rocky Mountain District. “That was good to see.”
In all, 105 girls registered for the event with 100 attending, including 10 girls who traveled from El Paso, Texas. Girls ranged in age from 6U and up to 19U. In total, New Mexico has 186 girls’ hockey players registered with USA Hockey. The event also included dinner and a long-sleeve shirt with the Girls Take Over the Rink logo for each of the girls.
After the clinics and scrimmages, there was a 40-minute game for 13-15-year-olds and then another 40-minute game for 16-plus-aged players. Younger girls were encouraged to stay and watch the scrimmages of the older players “so they could see that there’s a path forward for them,”Hanson said.
“They don’t have to quit playing hockey when they become teenagers and they get older,” Hanson said. “And they don’t have to play with boys if they don’t want to.”
Skinner said it was “planting the seed to continue to play hockey.” He added that he heard some positive feedback from the event. Even getting a portion of the 100 girls who participated to continue playing hockey would be “a huge boost to girls’ hockey for New Mexico,” Skinner said.
With smaller numbers of girls playing hockey in New Mexico, many of them play with boys or are the only girls on the team. That’s why an event like Girls Take Over the Rink is fun, Hanson said, because it shows them that they’re not alone if they might feel isolated on their hockey teams.
Hanson was inspired to start this event in New Mexico after attending a Grow the Girls Game event and leadership summit by USA Hockey last year in Utica, New York.
The purpose of Girls Take Over the Rink is to keep girls excited about playing hockey because so many girls leave the sport during their teenage years, according to Hanson. They’d like to try and prevent that, she added.
It’s especially important in a state like New Mexico, which Hanson referred to as “a hockey desert,” adding that the only hockey store in the state is a pro shop at one of the rinks.
New Mexico also only has five hockey rinks, two of which are seasonal and open over the winter. The only competitive girls hockey team is at the 19U level. Girls wanting to play competitive hockey start out playing with boys.
With the success of this first event, Hanson said they plan to hold it again next year and possibly in the fall with a Girls Try Hockey for Free event. Ideas are already flowing between Hanson and coaches as they hope to collaborate and expand hockey offerings with El Paso and New Mexico.
“I don’t know what the future looks like, but yes, definitely we plan to continue doing it,” Hanson said. “All the girls that came really loved it and said how great it was to see all the girls. They were asking ‘When are we going to do it again? You’re doing to do it again, right?’”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com