In girls' hockey, funding is the biggest challenge
Alanna Woodford was 4 when she first laced up her skates to play hockey with the team of 7-year-old boys who recruited her for a practice. She fell down a lot and didn't know the rules of the game, but from that point on, she was hooked.
"I just wanted to play with my brother and his team," she recalled. And she did, until she was 11, the age at which boys' ice hockey teams are allowed to start body checking. That is when Alanna's mother pulled her off the ice with the boys -- and got her in an all-girls club team, where no checking is allowed.
Now, at 13, Alanna and at least a dozen other girls in Scituate are rallying around the idea of creating a varsity program for girls at the high school. They are following the lead of towns such as Hingham, Duxbury, Quincy, and Marshfield, which compete as part of the South Eastern Massachusetts Girls Hockey League, formed last year by 14 towns.
But launching a start-up program is not easy. It takes time, commitment, a vision, and most of all, money. A high school hockey program costs between $10,000 and $20,000, which pays for ice time, buses, uniforms, insurance and coaches. Most schools do not have that kind of extra money in the budget.
When Hingham High School formed its girls' varsity team in 2004, it was established as a club program without school support. At the time, the team had 19 players, each paying $250 to join the team, with fund-raising efforts subsidizing the difference. Today, Hingham's team includes 28 girls and next year that number is expected to reach 40 players for both J.V. and varsity.
Because of the escalating interest, John Clifton , director of Hingham Girls Hockey, convinced the town that the program should be covered by the school budget. And now it is.
High school players know that varsity status is important. While there are club teams that they can participate in, a varsity team has more credibility; motivates school spirit; and, increasingly, provides the ability to compete at the collegiate level, as schools such as Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, and Northeastern establish women's teams.
"If I play on a high school team I can go to a state tournament, and there I'm more likely to be recognized" by a college coach, Alanna said. For now, however, all she can do is keep her fingers crossed that through the efforts of Scituate students and their parents, she will have that opportunity.
To be a successful, a high school varsity team needs a youth hockey "feeder system" where girls under 13 can learn the game and fine-tune their skills. "You need to be able to show that there are kids coming up at each level," said Clifton. "If you have at least eight kids at each grade level you'll have 32 kids in high school to play varsity and J.V."
The SeaHawks club team -- which formed two all-girls teams after Alanna left the program -- now has 43 girls registered. It would serve as Scituate's feeder system. And Rick Cash, Scituate's athletic director, is on board with the vision. But interest and excitement are not always enough.
"I'm in support of the program," Cash told the 40 or so attendees at a recent informational meeting organized by Kim Woodford , Alanna's mother, and Maura Curran , another hockey mom. "I think it's a great idea," he said. "The only issue is funding."
It's the kind of budget problem that keeps administrators up at night. Just ask Jon Kirby , athletic director of Medfield High School, whose varsity girls' ice hockey team takes to the ice for the first time this month.
The idea for a team came from the parents, who also said they would help finance the program in the beginning.
And they did.
But what about the future?
"It's just so darned expensive," said Kirby, pointing out that there's no money allotted for it in the budget. "It is horrifying from my perspective to think about how we are going to deal with this for the long term."
But Kirby -- whose Medfield team will join the South Eastern league next year -- and Clifton, along with others, are breaking the ice for others in the future.
"A lot of towns will have to address this down the road due to the sheer numbers of girls playing ," said Tom Findley , Hingham's girls' ice hockey varsity coach.
His advice to Scituate players and parents? "Just keep smiling and let them know you are here to have a good experience and to have fun," he says. "The money will come. Trust me."
