I had the pleasure this year of working with the Minnesota Girls Hockey Coaches Association, MGHCA, and the Minnesota State High School League, MSHSL, for the Girls State Hockey Tournament. My duties allowed for me to be present for both the AA and A games hosted at the Xcel Energy Center and Ridder Arena. In doing so this year, along with having been at most every boy’s and girl’s high school tournament over the past few decades, I have been able to observe and hopefully put forth some suggestions and a couple challenges to the girls hockey community.
The Girls State Hockey Tournament is hands down the biggest week for all young females involved in hockey in the state of Minnesota. Or at least it should be. The MSHSL, Xcel Energy Center, MGHCA, KSTC TV, the U of M, and numerous volunteers and sponsors put on a phenomenal experience for our female athletes and teams. The memories these competitors will have from this experience will rival that of their most cherished life events. The only problem is, this should not be a memory for just the players and the teams that are involved. The reality is though the attendance levels are much lower than what they should be and unfortunately those playing are primarily the only people who will have these memories.
This is not to say that the girls’ tournament should rival the boys’ in attendance. They are totally different animals and really cannot be put into the same context. But why accept the current status quo? What can we, the girls’ hockey community, do to help remedy the current state?
The generic answer, in my opinion, is relatively simple: it’s essential for all of us involved with girls’ high school programs and girls’ youth hockey to get better at promoting, encouraging and attending this event.
The nostalgia I still get from attending the Boys’ Tourney from a toddler to today will forever bring a wry grin to my face, and an instant phone call or text to my family and buddies. Whether it’s the glass boards at the old St. Paul Civic Center, watching Wally the Beer man work the crowd, getting out of Elementary School early on a snowy day to hit up Cossettas with my Dad for pregrame, or the street hockey battles with my brother and I pretending to be the high school greats of the day while we acted out the winning of a state title. I will always get the goose bumps this time of year.
We need to strive more diligently to create an atmosphere that will produce and increase that kind of feeling for more of our young future female players.
For me, the obvious first step is to target our actual market of girls’ players, coaches, and parents. Many high schools and youth associations already do a phenomenal job linking their programs within their own communities. Many currently run youth nights at high school games; offer an open skate night for meeting the high school players; and some even implement mentoring programs for the high school girls to learn how to be coaches themselves. I think we can exorbitantly increase the effectiveness of these efforts by stepping up to a larger level. If we build a partnership amongst the MGHCA, MSHSL, and Minnesota Hockey, we will be able to work together to bring more high schools and youth hockey programs down to the X for State Tournament. The base is already there for the grassroots, but we need to finish it off with a huge collaborative celebration at the end of February at the X.
In hopes of getting the MGHCA, MSHSL and MN Hockey into a more collaborative role we can try the following:
I hope that the above suggestions would help bring Girls Hockey the recognition it deserves. The State Tournament is synonymous with good hockey and teams that are fun to watch. It will take some time to build a tournament that draws the kind of attendance the girls only dream of right now. But one thing is certain: players who don’t make it into the tournament need to support their sport by showing up to cheer the participants on. If that doesn’t happen, there’s zero chance the girls pinnacle hockey tournament will ever get more than a few proud parents, some family members, and their pep bands to show up and join them. All the girls involved in this sport from U-8’s to High School deserve better than that. But it starts with you and your program.