Hat girls’ hockey a sport on the rise

By Mo Cranker on January 9, 2018.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

After a successful 2017, the Medicine Hat Minor Hockey Association is hoping girls’ hockey will continue to grow in the city.

Over the years Medicine Hat has seen more girls signing up for minor hockey, and currently offers a team for most ages.

“We’re happy to say that our numbers are growing every year,” said Medicine Hat Minor Hockey female director Kelly Mortlock. “This is our second year of having all-girls teams in the city and in minor hockey, and we’ve been able to offer that as a viable option to females in the city.”

Right now, the city has four teams with 78 Hat girls playing. While that is good progress, Mortlock hopes the city can offer teams for every age in the coming years.

“We’re pretty excited to offer female teams from Timbits all the way to Peewee. We’ve got four age groups of female teams, and we’re hoping that keeps our girls involved in the sport and to keep giving them that option to keep going with hockey for as long as they can or want to,” she said.

“Our challenge has always been what to do with our older players. There’s just not as many older girls playing because of the options being fewer for them. We lost some bantam-level and midget-level girls this year again because they just didn’t have that many options.

“It’s either play in the city league with the boys, move or do a lot of driving. We’re hoping to have a bantam local girls’ team next year, and eventually get teams from Timbits to Midget.”

For young girls in the city who want to play, the minor hockey association has taken steps to create small leagues with surrounding cities.

‘For our novice girls, we’ve actually created a mini-league with Lethbridge and Brooks,” she said. “The novice girls will play in the boys city league, but also travel once a month, or host some games, with those other teams. They’re doing a really good job in that league, too. It’s just another way we can get the girls playing with, and against other girls.”

As girls get older, the option to play on boys’ teams can get far less appealing, says Mortlock, but the association will always support a player’s decision on where she wants to play.

“We’re trying to support the girls with whatever choice they make,” she said. “We want to have options for the girls. We’ve done some surveys with the girls, and a lot of them say they would rather play on girls teams, and I think it’s the social side that is just really good for them. If a girl wants to play with the boys, we’ll always support them, we just want to have the optoins.”