Hockey... Why Not?

Me in my Violet Femmes gear

I first learned to skate when I was a kid. My parents would take me and my siblings over to the neighbor's pasture pond where we'd don our hand-me-down skates and play around on the ice until the hot chocolate in the thermos ran out. Sometimes the neighbor's family would come out as well and a game of pick-up hockey would start. This was my first memory of hockey, and the sport always kind of intrigued me.

Fast forward, in 2024 I learned about a program near me that was made for women (often mother's of hockey-playing kids) to learn to play hockey as adults. This program is aptly named "Try Hockey."

This program started at the basic how to items: putting on gear, skating forward, holding the stick, and stopping. Over the course of about 8 weeks, we learned and practiced all kinds of skills: hockey stops, skating forward, skating backward, sudden stops, puck handling, passing, shooting, and more. At the end of the program, we got to do some scrimmages - some small game like structures where we learned some different positions and their general functions.

Offence: Center, Right Wing, Left Wing - These players are the front line (literally) when it comes to passing and scoring on the other team.

Defense: Left Defense, Right Defense, Goalie - These players are key to keeping the puck out of their goal and side.

During the summer, I kept going and joined the Summer Intro Hockey League - where we did more practices and learned more about the rules of the game and the roles of players. We learned things such as:

Icing - when the puck travels too far across the ice rink uninterrupted after being hit by a player. This usually happens when a player is trying to get the puck out of their defensive zone and they hit the puck too hard for another player to intercept it before it crosses a specific line on the ice.

And

Offsides - when an offensive player is in their scoring zone and the puck moves out of the zone and back into the zone before that player can follow suit. This gets called by the referees in a game - when the puck moves out of the zone, all the offensive players must move out of the zone before they can pursue scoring a goal again. When the puck leaves the zone, they players must, too.

The summer series was often interrupted by other plans - like learning to ride offroad trails, and a two-week moto trip adventure - but when I got to attend, we practiced all the skills that were introduced in Try Hockey. At the end of the summer, the summer women's groups scrimmaged with the Summer League getting ready for their Winter Season. We cycled through roles - as you moved into the benches, we called out the position we played and another woman would come onto the ice and fill that position. Quite fun! I played Right Wing mostly.

After the summer, I decided to stick with it and learn by doing. I signed up for the rink's Winter Season - Ozaukee Women's Hockey League or OWHLs. That's right - pronounced "owls." The winter teams were assigned colors (we were assigned purple) and each team gave themselves a clever name - so my team became the Violet Femmes. And I played through the winter!

The final event of the year was a tournament called Hootenanny with points assigned based on wins, types of ties, and scores made. The Violet Femmes won that tournament! But really, the ladies were the big prize - everyone got to chat and hang out and be pals all day, while learning and developing as teammates and hockey players.

More?

There is that Summer League…