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Girls Hockey Needs Help From Within

By Jon Holmes, 03/07/14, 12:45PM CST

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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:

 

  1. Place a higher value on the Girls’ State Hockey Tourney by eliminating competition for attendance. The State High School Tournament is the highlight of many top tier players’ careers. Even NHL players that have been to the Stanley Cup and the NCAA Frozen Four, rank the MN Boys’ State Tournament with their top hockey experiences.  Currently, youth girls hockey district and region tournaments are held the same week as the girls’ state tournament.  This effectively decreases the very population of people who would be most interested in attending the State Tournament, most especially younger girls who we want to aspire to it. Conversely, it prevents high school coaches who, after finishing the HS season, would like to support their Youth Hockey communities from attending some of their end of season games. We should fix this.
  2. The X has over 60 suites. We can ask suite holders and area businesses to donate, or at the very least, make available the entire suite level for Minnesota Hockey and all its youth hockey associations to use or rent out during the tournament. Imagine the buzz of young hockey players packing the joint full, cheering and hobnobbing with each other in the most coveted level at the X.  I would expect that more than a few of these energized spectators would love to come back on another day/night, even in regular seats.  It would give the atmosphere a much-needed boost and it would surely create endless stories for the girls to brag about to friends and family.
  3. High School Programs – Get your players to go and watch as a team. Offer it up as one last team event for the year. Get your captains to lead the charge and possibly go out to eat at Cossettas or any of the fine venues on West 7th and around the X.  I guarantee it would be a tradition worth starting if your team hasn’t already! Use the buying of the state tickets early in November as incentive for your players to get to the X as a team and earn the ability to give away those tickets to their youth mentee groups once they make it there.
  4. Parents – You’ve put in thousands of miles, and thousands of hours running your girls to hockey activities. The State High School Tournament is fun and exciting for students and adults alike. Give your daughter another glimpse of “the dream,” and enjoy watching her sport at its top level. Think of how cool it would be to have the X vibrantly crammed with youth girls when your young player today gets to play at the X in her own State Tourney.
  5. Restaurants around the X – Run a special or two for those wearing a youth jersey.  You will certainly get a few more willing parents to go out for a bite.  Not to mention the ones that are less than willing will be badgered and pestered by their daughter and her friends that want the VIP status at your establishment!
  6. Refrain from comparison’s to the Boys State Hockey Tournament.  The Boy’s tournament has been around a lot longer and their success has come through similar ventures years ago.  The only thing we should be looking to that tournament for is inspiration. Let’s concentrate on promoting from within our own ranks first, get the girls to support the girls!  Who knows what will happen once we make that step.
  7. Axe the “change the venue argument.”  It’s exceedingly implausible that the venue of the Girls’ State Hockey Tournament will change, for a host of reasons, legal and otherwise. So, let’s embrace the venue rather than bring it down every year.  The X is a top-notch setting for any event, even practicing there is amazing. Watching a game, with or without a big crowd is also an intense experience. The acoustics in the X rival that of a concert hall. You can be up in the press area, practically touching the ceiling, and hear a coach give their player the business after a missed assignment. A tiny 15-piece band can fill the place with sound and a whopping 130 one can blow you out of your seat!  State-of-the-art sound panels serve to increase so many aspects of the fan’s pleasure. The same can’t be said for other rinks that are not built with the same level of technology in more ways than just sound.  

 

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.