Fledgling hockey league flying high

All-too-rapid expansion received a lot of the blame for the labor dispute that led to the cancellation of the National Hockey League's 2004-2005 season.

The Middlesex Yankee Conference Girls' Hockey League, on the other hand, has boomed from fewer than 20 teams at its inception three years ago to 84 teams this winter. There are no financial crises in sight, no tension between owners and players. And instead of draining the talent pool, the growth has actually deepened it.

"Girls' hockey isn't coming," said Kathy Cincotta, the league's co director. "It's here."

Cincotta and her husband, Ronnie, who live in Waltham, became involved in hockey when their daughter Jennifer started playing years ago in the District 9 girls' league. That district was a small gathering of town teams from the Arlington-Burlington-Waltham triangle started by Arlington's Steve Palmacci and Belmont's Ray Shea in the mid-1990s.

About five years ago, Ronnie purchased the Yankee Conference League, which he described as a catchall for a few lower-level boys' teams from the area. Ronnie, who owns a construction company, said the transaction was somewhere in the "thousands of dollars" and that he planned to turn it into a girls' league.

A year later, the newly formed MYCGL absorbed the District 9 girls' league, with a few other teams, giving the league about 15 teams across three age levels (under-10, under-12, and under-14). That was when Ronnie asked his wife to make a schedule for the league's teams -- a one-shot deal, they said.

"I wasn't really looking for a job," Kathy said, "but I got one." She said it's now a full-time job for eight months a year.

That's because the league, now in its fourth season, has grown considerably each year. About 40 teams were added just this winter, thanks to towns switching leagues, towns starting new programs, and existing programs adding teams. The Cincottas believe the MYGCL is now the largest such league in the state.

"There's a lot of different girls that are friends with other girls who say that they love the sport of hockey," said Arlington U-12 forward Michelle Reilly, explaining the surge in girls' hockey. "I want to play in college, because I want my career in hockey to get better and better."

And she's not alone. The league has added a fourth level -- under-19 -- that works as a preseason for many high school players. Each level splits into upper, middle, and lower divisions, allowing for different levels of play, and helping new programs develop instead of getting blown out by established squads. Kathy said teams at all levels have shown great improvement.

She said the level of play in the few town programs before the league started was "awful," and there was little competition, leaving select teams like the Concord-based Assabet program the only option for many players.

Today, many towns field five or more teams at different levels. Most of the teams come from the northwest suburbs , from Arlington to Andover, and Nashua to Concord-Carlisle, with dozens of games taking place each weekend .

The teams pay $200 per game (for ice time, scorers, and referees), sett ing per-player fees on their own, and the U-10, U-12, and U-14 leagues play a 22-game regular season. Each squad makes the playoffs. The Cincottas said they don't earn much money from the league, and whatever they do make gets funneled back into the playoffs.

"Their three-game playoff is included in their season invoice, but we pay for all the championship games and trophies," Kathy said. "That kind of eats up whatever we make, but that's OK. It's such a fun time. I love the playoffs."

The playoffs are very familiar for Arlington's program, which was one of the original District 9 teams and thus one of the best-established towns in the MYCGL. At the four levels, Arlington now has seven teams.

Tom Mallard and Kevin Hickey, two of the program's directors, co coach the top U-12 team in town, something Mallard prefers to coaching boys. "The boys probably have a 30-second attention span," Mallard said. Girls "have more like a two-minute attention span."

Having coached teams at various levels for the past seven years, Mallard said he has seen the positive changes the MYCGL has made in girls' hockey , resulting in new competition and an improved level of play that breeds parity and keeps players interested.

Before, "we were playing the same teams over, and over, and over," Mallard said. "When you're playing different towns, the girls are psyched. There's so many different rivalries. Every year it's a different rivalry."

Mallard said that Kathy Cincotta deserves most of the credit for the league's success, partly for her organizational skills (an area where other leagues have failed), but primarily for enforcing age-limit rules that are all but ignored in girls' hockey in many areas. Many towns muster whatever roster they can, often resulting in girls playing with and against players of different ages and abilities, thus stunting development.

"You'd have 12-year-olds playing with 9-year-olds," Hickey said. "Whoever you could get to fill a team, that's what would fill the team."

But Kathy has vehemently rejected such attempts, demanding that all players register with USA Hockey and Mass. Hockey and refusing to let older players play down a level.

"We get a lot of new coaches who don't get it," Kathy said. "They're like, 'Why do you have all these rules? It's just girls.' . . . But it's not just girls. It's real. They're here."

And Arlington's program is leading the way. With a decade to develop, the Arlington U-12 team is a "legitimate" U-12 team, Kathy said, consisting entirely of 11- and 12-year-olds who have played together for years and practice twice a week.

The results are obvious -- entering this weekend, the team was 8-1 in MYCGL play, with a 5-0 finish and championship at the Cape Cod Cranberry Classic tournament, where they faced higher-level "select" teams. And at Boxborough's Nashoba Olympia rink last weekend, the team earned a 3-1 win over the Nighthawks, a regional team based in Marlborough.

Goalie Casey Schaejbe said she is seeing more action now that Arlington is playing against better competition. Defenseman Taylor Norman said the team has an extra-tight chemistry, something that would be harder to accomplish if the girls were of different ages, or came from different hometowns, as on select teams. Earlier this season, Mallard said he had so many girls at his house for a weekly get-together that he had to call Hickey to help him cook food on the grill.

The result?

"They're so happy," Kathy Cincotta said. "In a few years, they will be making a huge impact on their high school teams, so these high school teams are only going to get better. I mean, really better."

Mike Lipka can be reached at mlipka@globe.com.