Avoid the best intentions that unknowingly
turned into past mistakes-
As mentioned in earlier parts of this series,
Florida has fielded elite level teams and players
who have competed at the highest levels for
many years. Nearly every year dating back to the
late 1980’s Florida has fielded one or more girls
teams that have gone to USA Hockey National
Championships.
For many years, Florida sent teams directly
to Nationals before facing competition at the
Southeastern District level. Players from those
early programs have been successful players
outside of Florida, aging up to prep schools, and
advancing to NCAA Division I, II, and III teams and
even some that have been a part of NWHL and
other professional teams.
Over the last decade or so, programs such as Team
Florida and the Lady Vipers each experienced
about 5-6 years of life as the girls travel program
at the state fielding teams at 12U, 14U, 16U, and
19U age levels. But never at all of them. Each
year the makeup of the teams changed a bit based
on the age level of the players.
Often a program would lose 2-6 players over
the summer to teams or prep schools up north,
luring players away from Florida. The drain of
those players had a detrimental effect on those
programs as they were often not able to keep
their best players in their system for more than a
couple of seasons.
As players left, opportunities for younger players
arose. But then those players were recruited
away, leaving the state at younger ages, making it
difficult to sustain teams at older ages (16U/19U).
In 2016, within a couple months after the Lady
Vipers 14U and 19U teams finished a strong run
at Nationals, they lost a large number of players
– all of which were aging up to the 16U level. So
many that it signaled the beginning of the end of
their program.
Without spending time and energy gaining new
and young players and developing them, those
programs never fed their future life line.
Level 3 of Florida Girls Hockey involves a program
of statewide girls teams under the Florida Alliance
umbrella, which has always been administered by
SAHOF.
For the 2018-19 season, the Florida Alliance Girls
will have teams at three age levels – 12U, 14U,
and 16U. The coaches from the 2017-18 Florida
Bulldogs 14U team, Lorenda Prier and Shawn Ray,
realized the importance in the bigger picture and
the long term problems with only being focused on
the elite level teams.
They have become the coaches for the Florida
Alliance 14U and 16U National Bound teams and
will provide their expertise in supporting the other
levels of Florida Girls Hockey as well.
The Florida Alliance 12U team is more of a
tournament team of statewide elite girls players
since teams at that age level and below cannot
advance to Nationals.
This 12U team is be coached by a trio of former
Florida players who advanced playing youth hockey
together, then aged up to play college hockey. All
three of them returned to Florida and are starting
to give back to the next generation of girls. These
coaches include: Shana Davis (Adrian College),
Cierra Romaldo (St Anslem College) and
Laura Solverson (Elmira College). All three
are experienced coaches, having achieved level 4
coaching certification and have been involved in
different ways since returning from college.
Former teammates when young players in
Florida, they joined forces last April to support
the Southeastern District Tryout for USA Hockey’s
Player Development program. This is when they
caught the bug of working together again and
raised the idea of coaching together.
As Jane Solverson recalls, “when Laura told
me she, Shana and Cierra wanted to coach a
younger team, I said, really…are you sure? Are
you really sure? I think that might be possible”.
Practices differ from youth travel teams-
Unlike most youth travel teams in Florida that
practice on week nights, the Alliance Girls teams
hold practices during a Saturday or Sunday at
rotating locations around the state. The players
on these teams live all over the state, and even a
few from beyond Florida’s state boundary.
This geographic rotation allows each player a
relatively short drive on a few of the practice
weekends rather than everyone driving to one
single location every time.
This rotation also means the teams do not have
a true “home” rink. The weekend practices run
like mini-camps including two longer than usual
ice sessions as well as an office component of
training and educational elements.
Logistically, one of the challenges is playing the
waiting game until the SFHL travel leagues set
their schedules before the Alliance girls team can
lock-in ice time for their practices.
Armed with a spreadsheet with 850+ rows
containing all SFHL games, and color coded for
conflicts, they can then map out their targeted
practice days, and locations.
This is critical because finding a couple large
blocks of available time on a weekend can be
difficult and rinks will not commit to times until
the SFHL sets their games.
With some of the girls still playing on youth travel
teams, they do their best not to conflict with too
many of their game days/times. This is especially
true for the 12U Alliance Girls team where more
than half of the players are also rostered on 12U
youth travel teams.
Florida Alliance Girls 12U team practicing
-Continued on Page 28
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