Our Kids Play Hockey
Our Kids Play Hockey is a podcast that focuses on youth hockey, offering insights, stories, and interviews from the hockey community. It provides valuable advice for parents, coaches, and players, covering various aspects of the game, including skill development, sportsmanship, teamwork, and creating a positive experience for young athletes. The show frequently features guests who share their expertise and personal experiences in youth hockey, both on and off the ice.
The show features three hockey parents, who all work in the game at high levels:
- Christie Casciano-Burns - USA Hockey Columnist, Author, and WSYR Anchor
- Mike Bonelli - USA Hockey Coach and Organizational Consultant
- Lee M.J. Elias - Hockey Entrepreneur, Author, and Team Strategist
In addition to the main podcast, there are several spin-off series that dive into specific aspects of youth hockey:
1.Our Girls Play Hockey – This series highlights the growing presence of girls in hockey, addressing the unique challenges they face while celebrating their accomplishments and contributions to the sport. Each episode of Our Girls Play Hockey is also hosted by Sheri Hudspeth who is the Director, Youth Hockey Programs and Fan Development for the Vegas Golden Knights.
2.The Ride to The Rink – A shorter, motivational series designed to be listened to on the way to the rink, offering quick, inspirational tips and advice to help players and parents get into the right mindset before a game or practice.
3.Our Kids Play Goalie – This series is dedicated to young goalies and the unique challenges they face. It provides advice for players, parents, and coaches on how to support and develop young goaltenders, focusing on the mental and physical demands of the position.
Together, these shows provide a comprehensive platform for parents, players, and coaches involved in youth hockey, offering insights for all aspects of the sport, from parenting, playing, or coaching to specialized positions like goaltending.
Our Kids Play Hockey
Our Girls Play Hockey - How to Start a Girls’ Hockey Program feat. Katelyn Parker of the Seattle Kraken
Welcome to the premiere episode of “Our Girls Play Hockey,” a new series within the “Our Kids Play Hockey” podcast network. In this episode, hosts Lee Elias, Mike Bonelli, and Sheri Hudspeth from the Vegas Golden Knights, dive into the intricacies of starting a girls’ youth hockey program. Our expert guest, Katelyn Parker, shares her invaluable insights and experiences.
Starting a Girls’ Hockey Program:
•Importance of having passionate leaders.
•Initial steps: Contacting district representatives and understanding rules and regulations.
•Grassroots approach: Building a sustainable program by starting at the lower levels and creating a strong pipeline.
Essential Components for a Successful Program:
•Importance of passionate leadership.
•Required resources: Ice time, uniforms, facilities, and coaches.
•Creative solutions: Utilizing different age groups and spaces to build a community and increase participation.
Challenges and Solutions:
•Overcoming hurdles in starting a new program.
•The importance of building mass numbers for a sustainable team.
•Balancing different age groups and creating inclusive environments.
Role Models and Representation:
•The impact of female coaches and role models on young players.
•Successful events and initiatives that promote girls’ hockey.
Creative Outreach and Marketing Strategies:
•Using social media and community events to spread the word.
•Collaborating with organizations like Girl Scouts and local schools.
•Hosting try hockey for free events and leveraging NHL resources.
Personal Insights and Experiences:
•Sheri and Katelyn’s experiences in growing girls’ hockey on the West Coast.
•Success stories and impactful moments from their careers.
Takeaways:
•Passion and leadership are critical in starting and sustaining a girls’ hockey program.
•Utilize available resources creatively to build a strong community.
•Promote inclusivity and create safe spaces for girls to thrive in hockey.
•Leverage social media and community events to increase visibility and participation.
If you have any questions or need further advice on starting a girls’ hockey program, feel free to reach out to the team at team@ourkidsplayhockey.com. Stay tuned for more episodes of “Our Girls Play Hockey,” where we will continue to explore and discuss various topics related to girls’ youth hockey.
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Hello hockey friends and families around the world and welcome to our newest series on Our Kids Play Hockey, aptly titled Our Girls Play Hockey.
Speaker 1:I'm Lee Elias and I'm joined by Mike Benelli and our newest addition to the hosting team, sherry Hudspeth from the Vegas Golden Knights. Our goal with this show is to tackle the topics and discussions surrounding girls' youth hockey, to better give the game something for everyone and, simply put, if you're involved in youth hockey in any way, we are going to provide value and insight to create both a better environment and experience for everyone involved. The format for this show is going to differ slightly from our normal programming. Each episode will introduce a topic or a question to discuss, and each episode will have a featured expert panelist from around the game to engage in that discussion. For this episode, we will be discussing how to start a girls program, and our expert panelist is the former captain of Colgate University's ice hockey team, who today serves as the player development senior manager with the Seattle Kraken, a team you may have heard of. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Kaitlyn Parker to the show today. Kaitlyn, thank you for joining us on Our Girls Play Hockey.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:No, thank you for being here. I'm going to toss this right over to Sherry. Sherry, you're franchise 31 with the Knights. We're interviewing franchise 32 with the Kraken.
Speaker 3:Where do we even start today? Yeah, caitlin, really excited you're here. Thanks for joining us. Caitlin and I have worked together here in the West Coast growing girls hockey through our work through USA Hockey. We're both in the NHLCA Coaches Development Program and, yeah, we're both just doing a lot to grow youth hockey here on the West Coast. So excited to talk to Caitlin today and I think one of the first questions I want to get into is, you know, starting a new girls program, starting a new girls team get asked a lot, you know, by parents, volunteers, if they don't have access to an NHL club and the resources that we have with NHL club is, say, you're in like Wyoming or Oregon or something like that, and you want to start a girls team. You know what are some of the questions that we need to ask to get started to grow girls team, like do you go to a board? Do you start an independent team? Where do we start?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, it's a. It's a hard question and I know there are some stipulations through USA hockey with if you're a new association or existing association. So I always say, start with your district rep and just try to ask some questions about hey, what does this take? What rules or regulations are in place that maybe potential hurdles that I'm going to have to jump over to starting these. And I think the biggest thing and sharing you and I probably have a lot of experiences that is starting at the grassroots level.
Speaker 2:So mass numbers is so important to starting a sustainable girls hockey team. Finding ways that you can get in to that lower level at the start. So now you're building your pipeline for a longer time, which just creates more longevity within your program. Now, saying that that doesn't always work and I think, too, figuring out ways that you can be creative and utilize your space and maybe it is utilizing different ages together to build this community and really pull the girls in and get more girls involved, because the more girls you have on the ice, then the better is. Hey, we might be able to form a team or we can play an in-house league and you're still giving it a similar experience for those players and families, experience for those players and families, and from there that's just the mini step.
Speaker 1:I would say to trying to build this long staircase to having a sustainable team. You know, Caitlin, it's funny we're bringing this up. I always feel like we should have titled this episode. So you Want to Build a Girls Hockey Team? Yeah, One of the questions and you're kind of diving into this is, I think we should establish for the listeners the must haves to starting a girls program. Right, you know, and I'm thinking things like that, you need to think about, if you want to do this, ice time, uniforms, facilities, coaches, et cetera. You talked about the district rep, you talked about the people you need to go through, right? So why don't we, why don't we identify the must haves?
Speaker 2:the things that you need to think about if you're looking to do this to starting a girls program. To be honest, I think it's just a really passionate leader. You don't have that. It is so hard. There are so many hurdles, there are so many different challenges that you're going to face throughout the time of doing it and the leader is the person that's going to be the face of what you're trying to do. They're going to have to share the message of your programming to people, to families, to get them excited about it.
Speaker 2:And then, from a non-ice standard um, like they're the ones that is leading it right, like if they bring the energy, they bring the excitement it makes those players and those girls and families want to come back to the rink every single time, which now you start to develop that love and I think everyone on this podcast understands like hockey is is definitely like a passion project.
Speaker 2:It's something that you love, like you're ingrained in it. It's develop that love and I think everyone on this podcast understands like hockey is is definitely like a passion project. It's something that you love, like you're ingrained in it. It's probably had some great memories in your life or different experiences that have led you to where you are today and has been part of it. But for those that have never experienced that, you have to allow them into that family in that larger community right away, and once you do that, I think it's they get hooked and now you can start to build it. But it starts with that first forward facing person that is going to talk to these people to convince them hey, you should spend your sunny July 20th in a freezing ice cold rink, right Like maybe if you're in Las Vegas, it's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 110.
Speaker 2:Way too rainy. All the rest of the year we want to be outside. So how do we create that to make people want to come to rings?
Speaker 1:I love that you said that, because we are recording this in June and it's very hot right now as we record these episodes, and you may be listening to this episode in the summer or the winter or any time during the year. The other thing I love about the passion that you bring up is I know 100% there is someone listening to this episode right now. It might be a mom, might be a dad, might be someone just graduated college who goes I am that person and you're affirming that person right now by saying this. So let's kind of turn towards that a little bit, because I want to motivate that person right now. They're listening to you. What's your message to them before we move forward of? You know, let's make this happen. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it will be the greatest challenge of your life, but the greatest joy of your life as well, and that is something that everyone thinks. Youth hockey is maybe sunshine and rainbows. The reality is there are some dark and cloudy, gray days, but at the same time, I think when you see a kid whether it's female or male, or fall in love with this sport and have a light bulb moment, like well, you're teaching them on the ice or anything, that's what makes it worth it, and then it re-energizes you to want to be better for them. Um, and that's that's a couple things. There is like it's going to be really hard. It's going to be really hard, but it's going to be so rewarding.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day too, and and I think youth sports has it's a really hard market. It's a hard world to live in because there are so many outside factors that come into play. Like if all of us were on this podcast and we had a billion dollars in a rink, we'd probably run something super different if there weren't outside influences coming in and hey, I have an opinion here, or whatnot, and so I think it's a balancing act there that comes into it. But at the end of the day, when you find something and you do it for those kids and they love it, then it makes it all worth it.
Speaker 1:Well, if we had a billion dollars in a rink, that would be pretty nuts. And I do want to say this too it would be pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone on this call. I know this just from knowing all of you. We've all started a program in some form or some way, some of us multiple times. I'll say this too there's not ever been a kid. I have coached any kid, any type of kid. Anything that I didn't feel the enjoyment in coaching that young person in hockey? Right, I think that's one of those myths about the value of coaching someone. Right, I, I've loved coaching every kid, for the most part, that I've ever coached, regardless of of race, gender or anything in between. Now, someone who has created a lot of programs and does this on a basis daily is mike benelli. Mike, I am going to throw it to you because I know you have a question as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean it's actually to Caitlin and Sherry because I think what you know when you're in the confines of national governing bodies like USA hockey and hockey Canada and and you know a lot of you know we talked about the restrictions and and where you can get players from and how to grow a program. Can you maybe both talk a little bit about your experience on as starting these girls programs, the challenges of the and the differences of starting a girls program with a bunch of 14, 15, 16 year olds or, you know, really looking at the organic growth of a program, saying, hey, I'm going to leverage the NHL's learn to play program, I'm going to have a girls only, you know, six you and the patience it takes because you can rock the boat on both ways right, cause I've seen it on both sides Like, hey, I'm a billionaire, I build a rink, I'm stealing every girl from every program that I can get and I'm going to build, I'm going to develop those girls. I've developed them by stealing them right.
Speaker 1:Or billionaires, on the show today.
Speaker 4:All right, my first hockey program was from a disgruntled father who said I'm going to start my own program because I hate that program. I said, okay, let's go, let's do it. So I think it's like one of those things where you know, is it, is it the pros and cons of organically growing? Because I think for us on our audience, if you have a mom or dad that's sitting there with a seven-year-old and they're looking at the horizon, they're like, oh my God, there's no girls program here. Like later on, but now is the time to start it. Like not when you get there, not when you're 15 and go, wow, I don't have girls program, we should start one. Well, it's like it's very difficult to do that.
Speaker 3:So maybe just both of you talk a little bit about and maybe how the NHL clubs can even help within this ecosystem of forming that organic growth in the girls game. Yes, I can answer this one a couple of ways. So if you live in a market, you know you're outside of an NHL market. So I was in Johnstown, pennsylvania, and we were about an hour 15 from Pittsburgh. So we're kind of outside of that Penguins radius where we didn't have like as much resources as you would if you were in Pittsburgh. So they did not have girls hockey in Johnstown but they had boys hockey for 55 years. So they had an existing organization with the Johnstown Warriors. They were run by a board there and the board did a try hockey for free day for girls and out of this try hockey for free day they got like maybe 20 or 30 girls came but we noticed that they were all this like around the same age where it's like, hey, we can start a 12U girls team here and we had to get an exception to take some eight-year-olds and when we did practice I carried along some seven-year-olds and it's like if you're a girl and you want to play hockey like, we're not going to say no to you, you won't be able to play in the 12 U Paul league games but like you can practice with us if you're seven or eight, you know. You know, encouraging those girls to play.
Speaker 3:So a try hockey for free event created a girl's team, so that girl's team. So Johnstown organization added one girl's team, so added one girls team. So we played the season and then after that you start to lose some right. So now we have some girls that can play 14u and we have these eight-year-olds that are, you know, turning nine, so you can just kind of it kind of starts to grow and if you have a good season and we had our social media and and letting people know that there is girls hockey in this town now you know you can organically start to grow from you know that growth event and event and then just slowly, you know, year after year you have to have some patience with it where you're developing girls and taking any girls that want to play hockey and eventually you can start a team and then start to build out a program as they age up and then coming underneath doing more girls try hockey for free events in that town.
Speaker 3:You know, like that that sort of worked with the NHL backing here in Vegas. A little bit different. We have NHL learn to play where they get the equipment. It's a little bit easier, I think, with an NHL resources to get girls in. We have, you know, a little more access to ice time than you would in. You know a smaller town. So, caitlin, do you want to talk about how you're doing it with the Kraken?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the first is finding a North Star. Are you building a competitive team? Are you building a recreation team? Is it learn to play base? Like what is that North Star that you're going to? And I think it can change. You can have this far distance goal and then you can also have shorter goals to it. So for us in our first year we were really small and I think it seemed like a lot back then, but now looking at it it seems like, wow, I missed the first year in some ways of it. But our first year we really focused just on those grassroots teams. So we only offered co-ed in our building and it was just a reason. We weren't sure what that clientele is going to be like, where our players were going to come from, and we really leaned on our learn to skate program and through our NHL program that Sherry was talking about, we require all our players to have taken some sort of learn to skate and really fortunate, like, yeah, and you guys do it as well.
Speaker 2:And actually Chad Goodwin came from las vegas, so he came from 31 to 32, which is great, so he knows what it was like and um started a massive learn to skate program. That was so great and I think it's. It's very rare that you're learning to skate, learn to play. Teens talk and communicate and he's been such a great resource for us and I think that's so important that you guys have to be on the same page of it and understanding some. Some kids are going to choose to to do skating, and that's totally great, and other kids are going to want to play hockey. But how can we make sure that that communication bridge is there between the two so it doesn't feel like you're on separate islands, but working together as a team, um, so we put a lot of resources into that first year and just did a ton of learn to play programs and for us, our learn to play was five to nine, so that is still a pretty big age gap for a lot of kids. But then you do have this entry to barrier of there's kids that are 10, 11, 12. That took learn to skate and now they want to play. We started a program called C-League, which is late start hockey essentially. So if you're in that older group it's a little bit longer. It's an hour on the ice, it's still once a week. You get a jersey. You have to come with this different group. They're a little bit older, so from a social dynamic it makes them feel a little bit better about it. But still, the practices, the ADM, putting them in station base, is very similar and the goal with that is that if it's an 11-year-old they take this SEAL League program for a year and the following year they have the possibility of joining our recreation program at the 12-year level. And that was something that was super successful.
Speaker 2:I think we had a ton of kids in that first year. And same with our Learn to Play program. And again you have such a wide age range that you're getting eight new players coming out of it. You're getting rising 10 new players and you can start to build it in that capacity.
Speaker 2:And I think our first year we had six teams. It was like two at every age level, from eight, 10, 12. And now last year we had 31 teams, not including our team. So it is something that all of a sudden it does explode and again, knowing, like Seattle's, a little different market than than Vegas and some of our other NHL clubs where there was existing hockey. So it's a balancing act too of hey, we want to start our own thing and build hockey players at the base, because it makes our state stronger, and realizing that parents and players are going to move around, whether that's from our association or to our association, and making it easy and accessible. But at the same time we want to make sure everyone can grow, because now we have local competition which, if you are on, I would say, like an island state, like we are, it's you want to be able to drive 20 minutes to play a game versus having to get on a flight and and go somewhere to play five games in a weekend there's a lot coming on this conversation.
Speaker 1:I've written down several questions. One of the ones you talked about uh, both caitlin and shry is that communication between clubs or between organizations, aside from this podcast. Are there places people can go to communicate about what has worked or hasn't worked within girls hockey, or is that something that needs to be developed, because I imagine that information sharing is vital at this point of growing the sport?
Speaker 2:Super vital. I think people sometimes like to hold their cards really close to their chest as well.
Speaker 1:Which is a shame.
Speaker 2:It is, and I think the hard part too is there's no right or wrong way, but the more we can work together the better. And again, it is really hard because there's not a mass volume of girls hockey players.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that, I think, makes people nervous that if they share information or try to build it collectively, sometimes they're going to lose players. And again, that's one of the things I think is so great about being funded by the NHL is we have opportunities that I view. Opportunities that I view and I know Sherry's done such an awesome, awesome, tremendous job in Vegas is bringing in outside people to become new role models and using and leveraging that funding from the NHL for the female ambassador program to bring people in and, again, welcoming people from all over. So whether they're in our association or they're in the association next door, they're the association on the east side of the state welcoming them, them in, because they just might not be able to have that opportunity otherwise and and now they get to be part of it and and I think that's one of the things that we can you can be really savvy with how you you allow people to experience it, at the same time saying, hey, go back to your associations and I think if everyone worked in the sandbox together, it'd be awesome.
Speaker 2:Understanding that's probably not like the all reality, but we get times where you're at a usa hockey event or you're at events that are a little. I would say like more switzerland area like geneva you can talk to, and I do think like knowledge is power and, um, if anyone asks me any question, like I'm an open book, I am not by any means reinventing the wheel or have done something so magical that I'm gonna like patent it and sell it for your money. So I I think that's one of the things is, if we have more leaders like that, it just helps grow that space even more, and there are a lot of people in in the hockey world that are willing to share well, and I can say too, that when Sherry and our production team were developing the show, one of the main goals is to create that communication right.
Speaker 1:Because while I do understand the select few times where it's good to hold things to your chest, broadly I don't understand why we do that right. I think that and this isn't all of hockey, not just girls hockey why would we not share what's working across the board and you can go inter sport with that too. This doesn't even have to be limited to just ice hockey, right. But I'm I'm with you on this, caitlin, like this should be more of an open book conversation. We should be helping each other grow the game. The competition should be on the ice, right, not necessarily in growing the game.
Speaker 1:You both brought up something else, too, that I want to touch on that I actually didn't think about until you started talking about it. There's a culture piece to all this, in a team building essence, and, sherry, you actually made me think of this when you said that we have this 12U team but we invite seven-year-olds and eight-year-olds out to practice. Obviously, in most organizations that's somewhat unheard of. You would never do that. You would never invite younger kids. But when it comes to the amount of players and inspiring I don't want to say the next generation, but inspiring younger players to continue in the game. It's a big deal to invite them on the ice and say, like you said, hey, can't play in the games, but you're welcome here.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably a major part of this, maybe in areas where girls hockey is not as prominent.
Speaker 3:I think if you have a heavy girls population, obviously, yeah, that probably won't work there. But if you're in like smaller rural towns, or even us in Vegas, where it's like there's not that many girls that play hockey, you know, like, compared to the boys, we have thousands of boys that play hockey but there's hundreds of girls that play hockey. So it's like if you can get five or six more girls, that's five or six more girls. You know, if they're in the game and they get an opportunity to be around the game, maybe make some friends that are girls. You know, like same for us, like our programming is co-ed. The only difference is, like our Vegas Junior Golden Knights. That's where it starts to really be girls only. So I mean, if you're seven or eight and you want to come out and practice, like this year, we're coach, I'm coaching 10, you have one girl, that's eight. You know it's like if you want to play, I'm not going to stop you from playing, especially.
Speaker 4:You know, like I don't want to say no to girls, cause it's so hard to get girls into hockey in. I probably had probably like seven girls only programs that I've kind of initiated and started and and they've always branched off of the boys. I mean, it's always, you know, it's, at the end of the day it's a business and you're like well how do I leverage?
Speaker 4:how do I get more? I see all these, all these sisters are here and all these little kids are running around the rink. How, how do we leverage them? And because of my, my usa lacrosse background and and seeing at the very young levels, it isn't co-ed like at lacrosse, it's like it's girls and boys and they and they divvy it up by age and you know hockey needs to catch up and again there's the barriers of money and equipment and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:And you know you look at girls lacrosse and how easy it is, right, you just get a stick and run use your soccer cleats, where the boys have to get helmets and shoulder pads and elbow pads and all this other stuff. So I think that's where hockey is very similar in. You know, how do you build your growth model? And I think I found and I'd love to hear from both of you because you've both played at very high levels in professional ranks and college ranks, university has been around a lot of pro girls and women.
Speaker 4:I've always found and this is my own personal experience that grouping girls together at the earliest ages six, seven, eight, nine years old it's so much more social and inviting and different. And again, I'm not saying you have to teach the girls differently. I yelled just as loud with the girls, the boys it's, but it's. Would you agree that it's for a parent that doesn't have the patience? Like here's dad, right, he played at Colgate and he's sitting there like she's gotta be, she's gotta be traveling across the country. At this point she's eight or no.
Speaker 3:How is she not?
Speaker 4:playing, playing an elite travel team. But you say, well, no, it's, it's social, it's it's more about the longer we keep them in the game, the better athletes are going to pop out and they're going to, they're going to expand. And I think within certain locations you still need that base because parents need to understand it's great that your daughter is a great athlete at six, but you need to make sure that we bring them all with us because when she's 12, there's no program here anymore, especially in small little towns. And now you're traveling, you know, on a plane to go play for another girls team. So maybe just to talk about the, the social aspect of why the girls game is so important to you know, try to put them together earlier and then have those great mentors and, you know, other women coaching those teams to to bring more, you know, girls into the tent.
Speaker 2:We, we don't say one thing or the other, we let it be up to the family. So we offer both pathways, um. So now we're we're in our second year of offering um just girls team within our association. It's still all recreation right now, um, but we let them choose. So, hey, you can come to co-ed and this is what it'll look like, or you can come to our all girls program and you'll be on a team. But we're in an area where our league, our girls teams, will still play against boys teams or co-ed teams at other associations, and the reason we did that is from just a easier scheduling. So they're still playing in like that local youth league. And there's a couple other associations that do have all girls. So maybe one every four games they're playing, they're going to play against an all girls competition and we work with those other associations to set up like a mini girls league within the greater league.
Speaker 2:But for us, when we were really analyzing what was the best thing, I'm a firm believer, like you, have to play. So if I'm telling the girls they can only play six games in a season because there's not that much competition where co-ed teams get 24 games, I don't think that's fair and from a development standpoint, they're not getting that in-game experience where we can put them in small area games all we want, but there is something about playing another team with a different jersey on and you're going head to head with them, and I think there's a lot of development that takes place in that. Creative freedom, free form play, which is we don't have a lot of anymore with kids, so I think it's one of those things too is okay. How can we utilize our space with what we have and ensuring that the girls can still get development? They still get the same number of games. Now, understanding, is it ideal and perfect? No, but being upfront in our communication with our families of hey, this is what it looks like, really good, but we don't tell them which way they can go so they can join co-ed and they can play all girls. And then we provide opportunities where there is that crossover Because, like you said, there might be a parent that just wants their girl.
Speaker 2:It's for ease. Their 8U boy plays at this time on rink two, and then their 8U co-ed girl could play at this time, and now I only have to go to the rink one night or twice a week, but on the same night, and so I think we we give it up to the families, and every family has a different thought process behind it. So our thought was we didn't want to put these, these families, in buckets for them now, if they have questions about it, they want to try out one or the other, totally open to helping them walk through that process and navigate what that might look like, while still providing that bridge over that. Hey, this AU girl in co-ed, she can come play on this tournament with all girls and is that the experience she wants or does she really want to go back there? And, like you said, mike, are some, some parents that think that there's a certain path and my girl has to play boys only hockey till they're a senior in high school and that's what they'll get their full ride, scholarships and when, as we all know, like the journey and path, you could start playing hockey at 14 and be an Olympian. Like there is no guaranteed way to do it.
Speaker 2:And and so I think that's been really successful for us is allowing them to choose, because now they can never say, well, you told me to do it this way and at the same time, it's not a perfect fit puzzle for every family.
Speaker 2:So it might be this girl wants to play here because they feel like they're more challenged. Or it might be the social dynamic they want to be in this space here and, and I think, continuously providing opportunities that females can get both adds to that social piece of it and then it also allows them again the rink's fun. The rink is fun. They want to come, whether it's to hang out with their friends in the locker room or it's to be on the ice, and I mean competition is fun. So maybe it's to be on the ice and I mean competition is fun. So maybe it's that piece of it that you're adding to this big bucket of what's fun for that player and that family and I think that's been really good for us. And again, understanding that as we continue to build out that there is going to be certain pathways, that hey, there's an all girls trajectory and there's a co-ed trajectory and at any time you can go between the two of them yeah, and I think what you're saying too is universal to boys, girls, anything I mean.
Speaker 4:Bottom line is I mean we like. It's not like we. You know, and I didn't mean to make it sound like you know I isolate the girls into this whole another. You know silo, but it is. There is a like.
Speaker 4:I've watched even in within, you know, some of the beginner. If I could take some of the not so aggressive boys and the ones that are a little bit more nervous, the ones that are a little bit not as just the high-level personalities, and I put them in a different environment with the other boys that are like that, they actually flourish quicker and get better. And then when the girls get to 11, they're kicking the boys' ass anyway. So it doesn't matter. Like it, it turns into a, it turns into a place where you're like oh my God, like I got. You know, I'm building competition within my own group and I love the fact that if you could have the girls migrate in and out until they kind of find their footing.
Speaker 4:Um, you know, at the end of the day, when you talk to a lot of women, they're like okay, well, yeah, when I got, we just had Megan Bozak in a in a like a round table discussion and said listen, when I hit like 12 years old and check and started, it was hard.
Speaker 4:It was. It makes it hard. So if there's nothing there, for me, though, in my, in my community, after 12 and 13, which starts with you guys right, it starts with growing the base so that there are more girls playing at that age Later on. I think that's the most important piece is to remember that what you guys are doing and this goes to, I guess, our original question where what would you tell parents and organizers and directors at the youth level? You know what are some, you know what are some North Stars that you need to look at? Well, it's that we have an opportunity for these girls when they're 15, but the only way to get there is to build the base of the pyramid when they're five, and that's such a that's a hard, that's a long journey that it's hard for people to see that vision all the way down the road.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're on a year two here. We have a program with Bauer. It's called Bauer Empower with the Vegas Golden Knights. It's 30 girls that are new to hockey so they just the requirement to join the program is they have to have like a minimum skating proficiency and not all of them can really skate that good. So we have a. It's all female coaches as well. We have a couple learn to skate coaches that are out there. They're female coaches, they wear hockey skates and those kids like there's a few that really are not strong skaters. So we keep them kind of down below the goal line and for the hour they're in hockey equipment and they're around the 30 girls. They're in the locker room with that 30 girls but they're not quite ready for hockey yet, they're not ready for learn to play yet. But we get them in the equipment, we get them to meet the other girls. They see the drills and the fun that they're having and want to stay in it. So that is ages five to 12.
Speaker 3:So pretty broad range and as long as you can skate you can be in this Bower and Power program. And the fitting last year we had Megan Keller. This year we had Layla Edwards and Caroline Harvey. So their first touch point into hockey when they get all their equipment is from an Olympian. So you can see like, hey, you can be, you know, you can be Layla Edwards one day, you can be Caroline Harvey one day. And they get all the equipment on site, like their jersey, everything like that. So in that two weeks before they start the program they can go to stick and puck and sort of get comfortable at home with the equipment.
Speaker 3:But the biggest thing I think with the Bower and Power program is it's 30 girls. It's, you know, the social is that they have fun, they're in the locker room together and then at the. It's an eight week program and at the end they do an evaluation. So some of them are going to have to go back to learn to skate, but they know that there's, you know, in six months there's learn to play. For you there's little nights. For you there's house league and last year so we had 30 girls. When we look back at it there's 25 of them now, a year later, are in our house league. So between five to 12, we have added 25 girls to our house league program, which a few of them now are on our 10U and 12U junior nights that came out of that program.
Speaker 3:So people that want to take it to the next level, they've seen it and the parents have seen it and the parents have seen I think very important seeing female coaches in hockey skates, because when you start at learn to skate, a lot of the women that are on the ice are in figure skates and I think the parents just see women on the ice and figure skates and little girls and you pick that figure skating pathway, whereas with this program you see the same learn to skate coaches and hockey coaches that are women out there in hockey skates and it's like, oh OK, there is a whole pathway and hopefully we can get to the point where we have a whole girls ecosystem of girls learn to play girls little nights. You know we have our tenured junior nights. They play in the co-ed house league. So they'll play in the spring and fall house league as well as the travel. So they only practice twice a week with junior nights. Then they get one practice in the co-ed fall house league and on the weekends they play games like co-ed games.
Speaker 3:But what we try to do here is keep those girls that are on the 10u junior nights as a fall house league team together, so they'll play against boys in the house and then sometimes it mixes with boys if we don't have enough girls, but just a lot of opportunity for girls to play with other girls and I think that keeps them in and also helps their confidence right. Like if you're not out there with nine and 10 year old boys who may have a lot more skill than you, you're with girls and it and girls. I feel like if you're confident, then you're going to want to come out there and try harder and work harder and, and I think with girls, like it's a lot more important to build their confidence young than it is. I think maybe for boys and I think girls I think to like girls care more about having fun than winning, whereas I think boys need to win to have fun, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I think it does. It's funny, sherry, you're bringing up something here. I'm thinking about some perspective here. 100 years ago, as a young boy, you might grow up thinking I want to play pro hockey for the Boston Bruins, montreal Canadiens 50 years ago. It becomes like, wow, that's a really cool thing to do. I could make a living doing that.
Speaker 1:If I'm not mistaken, 30 years ago girls might have been thinking I could play hockey and that's it. 25 years ago, the first time a 7-8 year old could think I could be an Olympian one day. Then, 5 years ago, for perspective, five years ago, if you were seven or eight five years ago, that's the first time in hockey history as a young girl you might start thinking, oh, I could play pro. And then now is the first time. And look, my daughter is seven years old. Is the first time a seven year old girl can look up and say not only can I play pro, but I can play in front of 20,000 people and play college and have a future in this game. That's really only true over the last couple years. So I'm giving perspective. This has been true for boys for a century and for girls this is basically new. Especially this past year it's become this massive reality Again. To use my daughter as an example, she's going to be growing up in an environment in the world now where playing pro hockey, being an Olympic athlete, being a collegiate athlete, is a very realistic possibility. She can dream about that. That did not exist to that level just a few years ago, right?
Speaker 1:So I'm going to turn this into a question now, building on what you both have been saying. Right, we have a lot of directors, parents and coaches that listen to this show, whether morally, you feel like this is the right time to build it, or even, as Mike pointed out, from a business standpoint, this is a good time to build it. Right? So we're talking now about organizations that have existing teams. What advice can we give them on moving forward with adding girls teams to their organization? So I'm talking about established organizations out there that say look, I want to develop a girls program. The timing is right. This is something that really should be done now in the game, with how the game is growing. What is our advice to them? They go I want to create a girls program within this organization. And was my timeline correct?
Speaker 2:I think there's no better time to do it then now, because from a business perspective, if you're talking about the influx of just revenue base, it's the same right. If you can get more players, it's just. It's the amount of players on the ice. Players is not gender specific, sure. So if you can get a certain number of players and you do a projection of what that looks like to make your ice costs or to make it equal, it's the same. And the other piece of it too is I think there is a lot of media.
Speaker 2:The time to view hockey has never been easier from a female perspective. There's a lot of push to it. So now you're getting families excited about it In that case too, that they can turn on their TV and they can see a PWHL game go on, they can watch the rivalry series happen, and so why not start with this momentum? And I do think it's one of the things that, from a business perspective, it's just players on the ice is what equates with revenue base generation, or generating. So it doesn't matter what it looks like and you don't have to do this crazy thing If it's hey, half the ice is going to be for girls only and we're going to have female coaches awesome. The other half can be for co-ed awesome. You're still utilizing your ice, it's just different ways to look at it. And again, you're creating the psychological safe environment for those girls to succeed. And, as Sherry talked about the confidence piece, the having fun piece, you can create that in different spaces on your ice.
Speaker 2:I think some people say, well, they need the whole sheet. Ideally it'd be awesome. I mean I would love the whole sheet for myself to go shoot 100 pucks. But I think you can be creative when you're just starting out and as it builds. Now the whole sheet is realistic and you should do it that way.
Speaker 4:I think, caitlin, I think what you just said is brilliant, right, because this is something I talk to hockey coaches, directors and program administrators all the time is that is a huge sheet of ice. With six-year-olds Like you need to think about it as three different facilities or four different facilities, and how you manage those facilities. You know blue line in center ice. You know different quadrants, like in the, in the, in the, what we have today, right, with cross ice boards and bumpers and border patrol, we have all the ability to make it not only safe but segmented. So when a parent looks, when a new parent comes in, they know what full ice looks like.
Speaker 4:It's like I've said this a million times, like right now, why is Little League Baseball successful? Because they build the field smaller, but parents get all crazy because they don't build smaller rinks. It's the same rink that Seattle Kraken skates on. So why aren't we utilizing the rink? Well, we are utilizing the rink. We're just utilizing it in a more economical way. Utilizing the ring, we're just utilizing it in a more economical way, and I think both of you and Lee you brought that point up. I mean, I heard Sarah Filler the other day on the NHL network talking about getting drafted, number one overall in the PWHL, and she said when she was a little girl, she's like I dreamed of getting drafted into the NHL. And everybody's like, well, that's ridiculous, like you're never going to get drafted. But now there's actually girls that are saying I will dream about that. And I think, sherry, you've seen it most recently, right that when, when, when the Vegas golden Knights go in and they win a Stanley cup and they do, well, it, that's what grows, like that popularity grows and Seattle comes in.
Speaker 4:Take advantage of that, of that bump, and I think, right now, for all of us in the youth hockey world, taking advantage of the bump of women's hockey and the fact that it's front and center. If I'm a youth organization and I'm like I can't grow my sport I've been trying, I can't get Well, take that bump, use those celebrities, use those pros to help you, Because if you see it, you can be it. We've heard this for a million years in growing up as hockey directors and coaches and program administrators. Well then, do it by taking front and center, the women that you have in front of you and and leveraging that, you know, and using that to your advantage. And I think uh, you know, but that's a great point.
Speaker 4:Going back to that, just use your ice and think about it as quadrants of development and don't worry about the fact that you're not using quote, unquote all your rights. I listen, I've watched. I've watched a million practices where people haven't even gone over the blue line and they want full ice. I'm like you don't even go over the blue line. What are you doing, like, why do you need it? I mean, I just wish the ice could be, you know, white and say you get that part of the field, you get that part of the field, you get that part of the field, and I think that's great, though, to think about it that way and to put people in quadrants and think about how you can leverage that as a business perspective, a growth perspective, a safety perspective and a development perspective. It's a win-win-win all the way around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we did that with our learn-to-plays too is we had girls groups within the larger space until we were able to start a girls only learn to play. So when we were starting of saying, hey, we really want to do this, let's survey our parents that are signed up to it. Do they want to be in this girls only group, do they not? And what we found was that players Mike to your earlier point in the show is like in same with Sherry like players that didn't originally sign up for it saw this group of females around in this, the big, larger ecosystem, but they were just in the group of the adm stations, together moving, so it was safe for them. They felt like they could compete. We had parents email us and say, hey, my daughter really wants to join that group. Is that possible?
Speaker 2:I know we didn't fill out the survey the first time and we would just do it and the way we did it was, I thought, very subtle. But their name tags were just a slightly different color or they had an asterisk at the end of their name, so our our on ice lead would know. Oh, these five are supposed to be in this group and these five are supposed to be in this group and and this, these two can go in the larger group and it was a way for us to say, hey, is this doable one? We're utilizing the ice in the same capacity. It's the same registration, they get the same gear, but we're creating this safe space for them within the ice rink that they can go into this station and it's all their friends, or it's this, this one group, and they rotate.
Speaker 2:The drills are the exact same, but they're just in a group that they feel like they can actually fully try the drill, which, as we all know, if you're not fully trying it, it's really hard to get better at the drill. Um, and we found great success in that and then from there, we were able to branch that out into. Now it's its own program of it and again, seasonal base that sometimes in the summer we have to recombine them again, but you still have this initial platform that works in that way of it, and I think that's that's been super helpful too, because you're just you're utilizing the ice in more creative ways, that it's the same time, same ice. It's using your grassroots coaches, your volunteers, the people that are passionate about helping, and those female players are getting the exact same experience as if their brother had done it or their neighbor had done it.
Speaker 1:You know you're leading into this. Next question that I want to ask and I think we're segwaying there again is the obstacles that need to be overcome by organizations, teams, players and their families in this environment that we're talking about, right, and just some of the notes I have listed here, like the hesitation of switching from co-ed to girls, or sometimes the other way around, the thought process is this just a boy's sport and then, as you just said, caitlin, you know, will they receive adequate development? Are there other obstacles that we're not talking about?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good one. I think there's always obstacles, right? If you look at it like the NHL, there is a certain audience that watches that and, again, I do think that audience is becoming much more diversified, which is awesome to see. Much more diversified, which is awesome to see, and now you're able to get people excited about the sport that maybe traditionally wouldn't be excited in that space, and now it's more inviting. You're more inclusive and I think that's so important. I think the amount of role models available to our young females now is unbelievable and I think those, those women, have done a tremendous job of putting that weight on their shoulders and getting into communities, getting out into it, and it's it's awesome to see, because they're really the ones that are empowering that next group to come through. And, like for Sherry, when we were growing up playing, it was Kami Granato. That's probably one of the ones that you can name that a lot of people are like oh yeah, I know who she is.
Speaker 2:But from there and there are a lot more in that same era but, it's hard to be like now. I mean, some young girls are like well, that's Megyn Keller, oh my God. That's Marie Filicone. Oh that's Laura Stacey, oh that's Laura Stacey, oh that's you know. They can keep going down these different lists of it all, like Kendall Coyne, like she got to raise the Walter Cup, and I think that's been something that's been really good, that it's there's less barriers, I think, for role models than there were before.
Speaker 1:It's an iconic image of her lifting that cup.
Speaker 1:And look just to bring up this point too. And then, sherry, I want your thoughts on this. This goes both ways. Um, excuse me, I was a young man in 1998, um, watching camry granado win the gold medal for the usa. I wish I could say it happened more often than that, but the point was she was a hero to me as a, as a, you know, a teenage boy. Right in the sense of you know, that was team USA right and she so. These role models are not just for girls, it's for all children.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's really important too and this is a point I have to make as a man that boys see this also right, that when you see someone lifting that cup and it's a woman, that's hockey and that's a professional women's hockey player. It a professional hockey player period. Let me just say it like that. It goes both ways. So, sherry, I want to throw it to you, but I wanted to say that because I I think it's it's not just about young girls seeing this which is really the priority. Don't get me wrong, but we all see it, and the more we can all see it, the more it normalizes.
Speaker 1:I also want to say, too sorry, sherry, is that the nhl. Uh, look, change in pro sports happens very slowly. I'm not going to get on a riff about baseball and how long it takes them to do things, but the nhl is so forward thinking, right. I mean the fact that we have two expert panelists that are not just women sitting at the table you are women running the table at an nhl club and we are privileged to have you as our guest says a lot about where this game is going. Right, it's an amazing time. Go ahead, sherry, yeah.
Speaker 3:Kayla and I both last year got to host the rivalry series, right, and what you saw, there is a lot of young boys, a lot of men at the game and if we can expose the game, like I love when we do autograph sessions with a Megan Bozak or Megan Keller and a little boy comes up and it's like, hey, can you sign this for me? I was at the rivalry series. We're hitting home, we're getting through to people, we're growing the game when you see that. But it's like boys are idolizing women, like we hear we have Jack Eichel and stars like that, and it's like they're coming to line up to get an autograph from Megan Bozak when she's here doing Q&As because they saw stuff like the rivalry series in market.
Speaker 3:So growth events like that, I think, really help to grow the game overall for everyone. And young boys and men and parents and girls can see the speed and the talent of the women's game. That's when I think hockey is just going to start becoming hockey. Where it's not, I'm watching women's hockey today, I'm watching men's hockey. It's you're watching hockey. So it's like if PWHL is on or NHL, they can interchange and boys and girls and everyone can, you know, love the sport that we love.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to say too there's no pathway forward without all of us working together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll just add to like for us in our organization, we have a female on our American Hockey League benches playing for Calder Cup.
Speaker 2:So if there's something there, like those fans there and our Kraken fans are seeing Jess live all the time and those players like they respect her. She is so great, fantastic at what she does. She is a pro in every sense of the word of it, and so I think that's become normal in our organization and for our fan base and it's so exciting to see because that's going to continue to branch out into other organizations and other fan bases and I think that's something that is so exciting and the future is all it's. Who is the best person to lead your organization, to lead your team, and it can be so many different types of people that can fit that role and I think we're really lucky that again she's, she's within our organization and what she's done like you look at Ty Cartier, having played in the NHL and now the NHL last season and his skating, and that's a direct reflection of all the work that she put in there. So I think it is something that it's becoming more normal, which is great to see.
Speaker 3:I think too, like someone like Jess Campbell gives you know. For me personally, like you say, we're the women running the table, but she's someone that I look up to. It's like if she breaks through and gets on, you know, as an assistant coach in the NHL, like that's so inspiring to me. You know in in my workplace and professional life. It's like, yeah, she made it, she's doing the work, she's in the AHL, she's riding the buses, she's doing the work, she's in the Calder cup final right now. Deserves a spot on an NHL bench. And if she breaks through, like to me as a woman in hockey, that's so inspiring to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say it's a question of when, now, not if, in that scenario. The other thing I wanted to bring up Sherry, and for both of you, you know you both work with NHL clubs, so we'd be remiss if we didn't dive into that. But I want to say, caitlin, I'm going to say something about Sherry, because we did an episode with Sherry and I want to preface this because I'm hoping that we'll be able to do the same thing for you one day. But when we did this full episode with Sherry, we have to pick cover images for these episodes and Sherry has a lot of great photos out there of her coaching kids. But I was adamant we'll use those too.
Speaker 1:But there's a picture of her with the Stanley Cup, as a winner of the Stanley Cup within organizations. Again, caitlin, that's why I prefaced it, because I don't want to throw it in the street. But my point is this I saw that. Our producer, caitlin, saw that and we said that is the image we need people to see. You're not with the Stanley Cup. You won the frickin' Stanley Cup with that organization. You are a member of that organization. You have every right to say that you are a Stanley Cup champion person within that organization. That was a powerful image that I wanted people to see. Right, this is someone with the Vegas Golden Knights that is a Stanley Cup champion. I'm going to throw it to you, sherry, because then you have a question about the organizations and the things that you get to do within your organizations and how that helps to grow the girls' game as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so just want to. Yeah interested to hear Caitlin, because we both get to do a lot of cool stuff. You know we were talking about female ambassadors and, um, the nhl. You know having a hand in that. Um, like talking about growth events in your market, caitlin, that have worked for you, like try hockey for free growth events, anything you've done with female ambassadors that's that's helped you either with growth or retention. Um and rivalry, can you talk about how you know having ambassadors has really helped your girls program?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we host a girls only try hockey for free annually and I think that is a great way to get females on the ice trying it, and our goal of that is to have as many female coaches on the ice at that event as well. Just because it's they can like we've talked about, they can see it, they can be it, and then from there we offer right away, like if this is something you're really passionate about, hey, here's the next steps for you. And you get those families, while they're excited, their, their daughters, excited about that, and that's been great. I think our biggest event that we've hosted was the rivalry series. So we were really lucky. Team USA came and did their training camp in Seattle prior to going up to Canada to playing the first set of the the games in that series, and we were able to utilize those athletes to come on our junior crack and practice both male and female to host clinics with the larger community, and it was one of the things that we saw so many different families come into our building. We hosted a panel presented by ESPN with different Olympians that would ask questions. It was more interactive than maybe your traditional panel and we had our whole entire restaurant at our rink filled with families, boys, girls. It was awesome to see and I think that's been one of the greatest impacts of events that we've been able to have, and it made people, one, super excited about the game that was being hosted in Seattle, but two, it also, I think it reinvigorated our group of families about hockey and like being able to see someone in a USA jersey up close and get to get an autograph from them and Hillary Knight warming up in the same spot you warm up in, is something that I think everyone, all our players, were so excited about. And what we found is, after that event, we had even more families asking about it, like, hey, how do we do this? What's the next steps? What are the ways that you can become an olympian? And I think that is questions that just weren't ever asked before, in our again infancy stages, I'll say, and now it was becoming more of a conversation, and so I think that was incredible again.
Speaker 2:Having the game with 14 000 people in climate pledge, or over 14 000 people, like breaking a record, was something for me. You sit in your city watching this like Holy smokes, this is so cool to see. And having the U S win was even better, obviously, and in Seattle, and just how excited people were. And the thing that is surprised me the most was open practices. The rink was filled, like people are missing school to watch usa practice and then staying to watch team canada practice because they just don't ever get that before, and so I think we're really lucky to have that, and, and the more times you bring people in with different backgrounds, the the better. And we were able to fly out through that female ambassador program, a couple other coaches and run some offshoot programming in conjunction while the teams were here was just a way that we leveraged that opportunity that came through our building and it was fantastic. So I think that was one of our biggest events that we've had.
Speaker 2:And then, from an annual, that girls try hockey for free is so important to have, and we try to bring different people in as much as possible different settings. So my first year we ran a girls camp and we brought in NCAA players that were local and flew some in just because that was more that age base, just because that was more that age base, who their role models were at the time and that the females that were actually doing it in the sense that they wanted to get to that next college level, and that was super impactful too, because you have a five year old looking up to Natalie Snodgrass, who now is a PWHL pro for Ottawa, and she was out there running the drills with these kids. So I think it's the little steps, and being able to have that ability to have funding is so important and vital to just making sure that these females are at the forefront and they're awesome to work with. I mean, vegas has utilized a bunch of them and it's great to see that's continuously happening.
Speaker 3:Here too, we celebrate World Girls Hockey Week, so that's an event with usa hockey and ihf that gets celebrated around the world. Um, so our first year, here we, my first year, we did a girls dance party. Um, so on our, on our rink, we cut the lights, it's a. It's like I'm not a glow in the dark, but like a dance party, where they're in their hockey equipment and we just have music going, super vegas and girls can just kind of party and we have pizza party for them, also have, like you know, girls clinic with college coaches and stuff We've done a few times here during that weekend. And then one of the components that's super fun is out front of City National Arena. We block it off and we have just a big girls street hockey as part of that weekend. And we get back to talking about the cup. Uh, this year was really special. Um, bruce cassidy has a daughter and, uh, he approached me and he asked if he could bring the cup to our world girls hockey street hockey.
Speaker 1:So, and you, said no, thanks, of course. Right like there's no need to do, oh no I did not say no thanks the opportunity to play street hockey with the stanley cup.
Speaker 3:I goes up there in one of those core memories of being able to share that we invited all the girls in our house league for that and they all had their house league jerseys on and we had the cup there and they played street hockey and at the end every family was able to take a photo with the cup, you know, in their jerseys and I think you know part of that was you know with World Girls Hockey Weekend and I think you know part of that was you know with World Girls Hockey Weekend and then it gets shared, you know, on all the social platforms ours, usa Hockey, and people can see you know some of the exciting stuff that we're doing here in Vegas and hopefully they copy it Honestly. It's like have a street hockey in your organization, in your town for girls. Like, please copy us. Like you know, we're just trying to do cool stuff and make girls hockey as cool as possible and obviously playing street hockey for the cup I think is the epitome of cool.
Speaker 2:That is that is pretty amazing and that's the other thing I totally forgot, sherry and I, during winter classic, because it was 31 verse 32. We, um, we hosted a 10u cross ice mini winter classic jamboree prior to the game and then throughout that. I mean, we were really really fortunate that we were able to provide tickets to the Winter Classic game for both Vegas and then we did a raffling and what we did is we had different age brackets within it, so we had an all-girls division and it was cross-ice, so you have two games going on at once. We had a select division and then we had a 10-U rec division and it was, I thought, awesome. It was super fun. It was super fun like fun, different things you were able to bring in.
Speaker 2:So, vegas had two teams come in, we had a team from alaska come in, we had some other local teams as well and, um, it was just an opportunity to to have this leading into the winter classic game and then we had raffles for winter classic tickets that you could win if you were part of it and, um, that was something that again very fortunate that we were able to do when we had this larger event from that there and I thought it was great that we were able to kind of bring all those buckets so you have, like, your elite bucket, your recreational bucket and then your girls bucket, that all gets to participate. So no one's feeling left out of this and again it's adding to the excitement of this major event that's coming on January 1. For us that was in Seattle.
Speaker 1:I'll say that what I'm taking from this is that it's okay to have some creativity and how to create outreach and how to create fun for these programs. And the last question this just came up as you were both talking Again so you want to start a girls hockey program, right? Let's just say you have interest. We should ask this question what do you do to spread the word that, hey, we're starting a girls program? Let's just say you have just enough players, but you need to expand. In your local community, in your local town? Let's just say it's not an NHL city, right, it's just some place that wants to grow. How do you get the word out? Where do you go? Who do you speak to to let girls know, hey, we're starting a girls hockey program?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think utilizing social media, the platforms, the communication platforms that you have, is is you have to do it. It's imperative to success. Finding other organizations that maybe have young females, that they're like Girl Scouts, for example that's a huge national organization that almost every town has Can you bring them and do like a public skate at your rink and then you have opportunities, or it's a girls try hockey for free in that sense of it, and again, girls try hockey for for free. I think is an awesome first starting point. I think getting out into the community, getting into schools, um, and utilizing what we all have at our fingertips is like a phone and being able to now blast your message across all these different platforms, is it, hey, those?
Speaker 2:Let's say, you have 16 girls in your program bring a friend to hockey day, and now you have 32 kids coming into the rink and if you get half of those now, you have even more girls. So I think there's a lot of creative ways to leverage If you have a small group that let those families present them and provide them with such a fun environment that they love it that they're going to go tell 10 other families and now you're going to have this new influx of families coming into your building and be ready for it. How do you invite them into that space? How do you welcome them? How do you make sure that their players and their girls are having just as much fun as those that have maybe been playing hockey for a long time? And again, I think it starts with if you're passionate about it, you're excited about it, it gets other people onto that same train with you and, um, when the train starts rolling, it's going, so it's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think social media is huge, even if you all you are in a small town, start with just a team page you know and use, use, utilize hashtags like hashtag girls hockey. Hashtag hockey is for everyone. On Facebook there's a lot of hockey communities that are just for girls. You can post in those communities and they'll have 40 or 50,000 people. If you're looking for a player, post your flyer, get your program out there. Just almost spam it across like female programs and get out there and utilize, I think, hashtags and tagging brands. I've had a lot of success, even before I was with NHL is tagging brands in your girls content. So if you have pictures of your girls playing in Johnstown, we tagged Adidas. They saw our Johnstown page only had maybe one or 200 people following it, but we tagged a brand and Adidas came through and they gave us backpacks, water bottles, shoes for our girls team. In Vegas, we had a page with our girls team and we tag Howie's. They helped us out. Biosteels helped us out.
Speaker 3:You don't know what's going to hit on the internet If you just throw content out there. Something's going to click with someone. Maybe you get a player out of it. Maybe you get some water bottles out there. Something's going to click with someone. Maybe you get a player out of it, maybe you get some water bottles, maybe just get visibility for your program and people just spreading awareness and people want to be a part of what you have. So, yeah, just utilize social media as much as possible to grow your team and your organization.
Speaker 1:I was going to say we talked a lot about passion in this episode. That passion for the game is intoxicating in any environment, right? And I think, like you're both saying, when you share that passion, people want to give it back to you, right? Um, to review this episode, I got a page full of notes, but I've put together throughout the episode what I, what I would consider your key points right to creating a girls hockey program. I'm going to read through them. These are in no particular order, although I will start with what caitlin said need a person of passion, people with passion, to push it forward to that North Star, right? If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? You need to provide that for people. Three I have on here is representation right, you need to have female coaches. You need to have people there that can share the game in a way that's going to inspire people to want to be involved. This one from Mike and all of us is really just smart use of ice, right? It's not about having resources, it's about being resourceful with what you have. The next one events and outreach right, you have to create fun events that people will go to. And then, as we just spoke about, you have to communicate those to the greater masses, that we're doing a try hockey for free day, we're doing a bring a friend to hockey day. And then the last one I have on here is that now is the time. There probably has not been a more fruitful time to start a girls program than today.
Speaker 1:Whenever you're listening to this, if you haven't been paying attention, I don't know what to tell you. This is a thing that's happening right now. You can be a part of it. So for the person listening, I'm going back to the beginning of the episode. If you are that person, you have a passion for this. This is something you want to do.
Speaker 1:I hope that this episode has motivated you to stand up and stand a program up and to go to your local organization or to start an organization for girls hockey, because it's right for the game, it's right for our kids, it's right for society, it's right. And all across the board here and Sherry Caitlin and Mike, you too this has been phenomenal. Today I think we really tackled that question of how do you start a girls program. I want to make sure that everyone listening also knows email us, send questions our way. Obviously, it's team at. Our kids play hockey for us right nowcom. But you can also talk to these, these women as well, who are leaders in the community. Both of you, we are so privileged to have you here today on our girls play hockey.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you for having me. That was a super fun conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you and share any final words from you. I'll give you the last word before I close this out.
Speaker 3:No, this is great, yeah, thank you, caitlin, for sharing all your knowledge and keep doing what you do for the girls game.
Speaker 1:There we go, Mike. Any other things to say? Sorry, I threw that to Sherry. I should have asked you before. But it's OK, I don't think she minds.
Speaker 4:No, it's all good. It's like just any time you get this little nuggets of knowledge, use them, put them into your organization. It's. Hopefully this will come out before the season starts and you have a big up ramp to put a lot of these things into play and get yourself ready for the next season.
Speaker 1:Well, that is the goal is we're going to have these out and again, if you like, this episode of Our Girls Play Hockey. Remember, we're going to have several episodes under this moniker dealing with topics ranging across female athletes to the myths of female hockey and girls hockey. We're going to have a lot of topics, so make sure you take a look for our girls play hockey episodes on the our kids play hockey network. But that's going to do it for this episode. I want to thank Caitlin Parker, Sherry Hudspeth, Mike Benelli. I'm Lee Elias.
Speaker 1:We will see you on the next edition of and I love saying it Our girls play hockey here on the our kids play hockey network. Everyone have a wonderful day. Skate on. We'll see you soon. We hope you enjoyed this edition of our kids play hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value. Wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network or our website, ourkidsplayhockeycom. Also, make sure to check out our children's book when hockey stops at whenhockeystopscom. It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of our kids play hockey and we'll see you on the next episode.
