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I bet you didn't know that women have been playing ice hockey nearly as long as men
the first recorded
women's hockey game was played in eighteen eighty nine in ottawa
women's hockey league's thrived in canada through the nineteen thirties after
world war two interest in the woman's game declined through the nineteen sixties
today ice hockey is one of the fastest growing women's sports with the number
of participants increasing three hundred fifty percent
in the last ten years
while they are not as many organized
leagues for women as there are for men
there exist leagues on all levels
one such league is the canadian women's hockey league which is one of two major ice
hockey league's in canada
the league was founded in two thousand and seven and currently has six ice hockey teams
three in ontario one in quebec one in alberta and one in boston massachusetts
someone
who knows about women's hockey is the coach of the chelmsford high school girls
hockey team
lenny rowe
a few of the players on the boston blades played for him
coach rowe explains how he began coaching the girl's team
well I had three daughters
and they all went into figure skating
and the figure skating organization asked the middle one not to return because she was disruptive
maybe she should take speed skating so
instead of speed skating she wanted to go into hockey
so she went into hockey at six years old
and here we are the youngest one followed her as a goalie and the older one transferred from figure
skating to
hockey as a defenseman
and where are they today
well one
has worked for the bruins the
oldest one she played a year
at uh...
southern maine
and then three years at U. Mass. Amherst
good for her yeah the middle one
four years at St. A's she was a captain up there
and the youngest one is now at UNH she's not playing hockey she's playing rugby
coach tell us about some of the recent successes
or challenges of this particular girls ice hockey team
this team is probably the most skilled team we've had
over the
twelve years existence of this team is that how long you've been coaching twelve
years yeah we started it twelve years ago
what is your goal of coaching the girls well actually my goal has always been
to coach 'em until
uh... female a qualified female shows up and says
let's take this over because i don't
really believe that the girls should learn it a male should have to run this
it should be run by females
and right now as an assistant coach i have my daughter sam my middle daughter
and she's the JV coach
maybe she will maybe somebody else will
but it really should be run by female coaches how do you help the girls or do you help the girls get
into college programs to continue
their hockey playing years
if they tell me uh what colleges they're interested in
we'll call up the coaches and they'll come
watch or we'll send them
you know information and
and it seems like uh... when you start winning like
we were six and 0 at one point you see the college coaches there we've already had
i've seen two in the audience one's already contacted me
and to talk about different people
interesting
to see two sets of sisters playing hockey
on your team at the varsity level
how much do you think that
helps the girls team
that you have sisters who know each other well well
the kender's it's like really not having sisters it's like having one player
you know they they both think the same
they're both very very dedicated it's hard to explain but working with them is like working with one person pretty much 0:03:33.389,0:03:35.609 you know even though one's a forward and one's a D
it's uh... so
that's not that way but we've had
sisters in the past
and i think it helps i mean when my
youngest came in my middle one was still on the team
and uh she helped her through it
i'cause I notice when freshman uh... first join the team
they have a tendency to be a little behind or lost
only because of the maturity level maybe uh maybe the confusion of all of the new
excitement new information
but they always seem to be a step behind so we try to assign
if we get a freshman on a team we try to assign a senior to the freshmen
and when it's sisters it's even better
what do you attribute your success here to
that's a tough question
i know we don't treat 'em like girls we treat 'em like hockey players
we have difficult practices we uh through clinics all summer
and we have all age groups through the summer and we
skate 'em hard they seem to like it
and uh that's one thing
also
we'll bring in younger players and we'll work with 'em
with the with the theory of them being
as a junior as a senior getting a lot of ice time
but maybe as a freshman sophomore
not getting that much ice
and uh... and that helps because they learn the systems
and they learn what we're trying to accomplish and by the time they are seniors they're usually a pretty dominant player
do you foresee in our futures seeing women play hockey
at a professional level
that would be difficult because the strength level and the quickness level
is difficult
uh... as a goalie uh you know that's happened there's been professional goalies
as a player
it'd be tough 'cause you could have the most skilled a female player then
they go out and play with the boys and they get knocked around
uh... and it doesn't take long before they get hurt
what about though the lack of checking do you think that detracts from the game or adds to the game
I like the game with checking I like
first man on the body second man on the puck that's all fun stuff
but you know these are still
women they're young girls you know you don't want 'em out there mashing each other
and the girls game is a more of a finesse game
you know they've got a
they just can't go in and knock somebody down and take the puck away they've got to finesse
the puck away they've got to get good angles they've got to have real good skating
abilities
you know so personally I like the boy's game but i don't think it's they're different
and
the
the girls game is more of a european-style
of skating and passing
where the the boys' game is more of a muck it up
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