Ice hockey attracts more than males to rinks

NEWINGTON, Conn. – Sarah Appleton is hard-pressed to remember a time growing up when she didn’t play hockey with boys.

The lack of good girls ice hockey programs forced her to play on boys teams until she was 13. Now, she’s 18, and that’s no longer necessary.

“There’s definitely a lot more opportunities for girls to play hockey than when I was younger,” said Appleton, a member of the U19 Connecticut Polar Bears, a girls select hockey team.

Statistics and tournament attendance show that women’s ice hockey is taking off.

In Connecticut, more than 220 girls hockey teams skated this week in what is billed as the nation’s largest youth ice hockey tournament. The four-day tournament drew more than 3,700 girls from across the United States and Canada.

USA Hockey statistics show the number of registered female players around the country has risen from 6,336 to 51,275 since 1990.

“It’s big,” said Rae Briggle, senior director of member services at USA Hockey. “Female hockey has just gotten huge in the last 10 to 12 years. It’s our largest growing segment today.”

The resurgence is driven by the emergence of more high school and college programs, the creation of an Olympic women’s ice hockey team and Title IX – the 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funds.

“Those things have contributed to the growth of the sport at every age level,” Briggle said.

Minnesota leads the nation with 9,443 registered players, Briggle said. Massachusetts has about 7,000 and Connecticut is home to nearly 1,800.

“You find certain areas more prone to hockey like New England and Minnesota,” said Aaron Kemp, assistant coach of women’s hockey at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. “Down south, hockey just isn’t as popular, and that’s not just girls.”

States including Arizona, Nevada, Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana have fewer than 100 registered players each. The smallest number is in Hawaii, where there were three players for the 2004-05 season.

Women’s hockey got a boost in 1998, when the USA women’s team won a gold medal in the sport’s Olympic debut. Eight members of the women’s 2006 team are from New England. Four have played for the Polar Bears, the first USA Hockey-affiliated girls hockey organization in the state.

Maurice FitzMaurice, co-founder of the Polar Bears and organizer of the team’s annual holiday tournament, said he never believed female hockey or the tournament would grow so quickly.

“It was all to get some attention from college coaches because the girls were hidden by the boys and were not identified,” FitzMaurice said of the team, established in 1985.

He said the first invitational tournament had only four teams and was created so the Polar Bears could qualify to play in the national tournament in Detroit, which it won.

Since then, the organization has produced five Olympic players and two newcomers selected Tuesday to the 2006 Olympic team roster.

Page O’Neill, who plays on boys team at Conard High School in West Hartford, watched the Polar Bears play in the tournament Thursday and dreams of one day seeing a professional women’s league.

“I hope that it grows,” the 16-year-old O’Neill said. “I hope there is a WNHL at some point.”