In addition to playing tournament games, all teams
also pick up added game experience by playing
youth teams around Florida, often connected
with a weekend and location they happen to be
practicing.
Playing many tournaments out of state, provides
the team with opportunities to experience things
they would not find in Florida.
During a tournament in Rhode Island, the Alliance
Girls 14U and 16U teams went through a special
workshop conducted by long time female hockey
advocate Digit Murphy alongside the NY Islanders
Girls teams.
They also took a bus tour of NCAA D3 college
Johnson & Wales, walking around campus with
one of their players and staff member and also
cruised around Ivy League D1 college Brown
University, even doing a team “selfie” with Digit
Murphy in front of her portrait hanging in the
Brown University hockey hall of fame. The Florida
Alliance Girls program is more than just playing
games, its about providing an experience.
Support of All Programs-
The Florida Girls Hockey Program Directors want
to make it very clear that they do not believe the
Alliance Girls teams are the only program of girls
teams that should exist in the state. They know
other programs will form teams and they welcome
that.
Just this year, as mentioned, a Saddlebrook Girls
program formed from players and coaching from
the Crunch program. They are under the direction
of Hockey International, LLC, a private company,
renting ice time at Florida Hospital Center Ice,
with teams at the 14U and 19U level.
The Tampa Bay Lightning’s Lightning-Made
program is fielding a 12U girls team playing in the
SFHL travel league at the 10U level. The Lightning
Made program has created a feeder system with
games in locations around the Tampa Bay area.
Plus there are a handful of other rec-level girls
teams around the state that are all developing
players, including the programs at RDV Ice Den.
By collaborating and working together, Florida
Girls Hockey can help ensure that all of our
programs are successful and provide families and
players options. The bottom line is its all about
what is best for the players and their families.
The Alliance teams, and more importantly, Florida
Girls Hockey are formed with the inherent purpose
of developing a complete program for girls from
supporting entry-level learn to skate players
all the way through to the elite National Bound
teams. The goal is to provide an avenue for girls
to learn the sport, play at their local rinks and find
opportunities to play at elite levels for those with
aspirations to play in college and beyond.
The more players they can help local rinks
introduce to hockey, the more can advance to the
competitive levels and this will ultimately create
more programs.
Solverson and Novotny would love to look back in
5 years and see multiple girls teams at every age
level competing every other week in a Florida Girls
Hockey League like the youth travel teams.
Then those teams can compete at SAHOF
Championships to determine which team will
advance to Districts for a shot at Nationals. Also
find a way to add a girls division to the high school
leagues like they do in other states, and even
collaborate with local universities to create a club
or NCAA level hockey team for women.
This way we have a complete array of options and
local opportunities for girls at all age groups who
want to play the game and stick closer to home to
do it. But it takes energy and resources for each
levels of “the house” to support the next level.
-This article was written in collaboration with Jeff
Novotny, a SAHOF Director and the Co-Program
Director of Florida Girls Hockey and the Florida
Alliance Girls program. To find out more about
Florida Girls Hockey, or how you can help, go to
FloridaGirlsHockey.org. Their website, housed
under the SAHOF website, will open you to all
levels of the holistic girls hockey program.
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