While the girls playing hockey in Montana are not fragile, the future of their program may be. Grace Hoene is the Youth Hockey Director in Missoula, she offered her perspective in an interview on October 12.
Hoene has been playing hockey for almost her entire life. She spent most of her time in youth hockey playing on girls teams. When she moved from Minnesota to Montana she began playing adult league hockey but was soon recruited to coach. At the time the only option for girls hockey was an in-house practice team. From here though Hoene says the program began to grow and a 14U team was added, followed by a 14U girls league in Montana. She then moved up to coaching 19U as the programs in Missoula expanded further. Now Hoene is no longer coaching but is still involved with hockey as the Missoula Youth Hockey Director where she is now involved with both the youth and girls side of hockey.
Hoene says that the biggest challenge we are now facing in girls hockey is, and always has been, numbers. Numbers are unpredictable up until the point of registration so it can be difficult to make plans for the program. Efforts are being made to recruit more girls, with Try Hockey for Free events and opportunities for young girls to experience higher level hockey. When asked why girls should choose to play girls hockey Hoene said, “I would encourage girls to play girls hockey is number one to grow the game.” She goes on to explain how girls in hockey are in a unique position where they almost have an added responsibility of growing the game. Hoene also highlights the benefits for development that girls hockey offers and the greater chances for advancement past highschool. Most importantly she says that it is, in her opinion, simply more fun to play with girls.
Hoene herself has fond memories of playing and coaching girls hockey; she is still friends with her teammates from her 14U season and even attended one of their weddings this summer. She recounted her favorite coaching memory of when the 19U team won the state championship for the first time. “We were the underdog” she says of the team at the time, “there was a Bozeman team that had won two or three years in a row and were really cocky.” She then goes on to describe the moment the team won, “we had just tied it up and then the next shift Ali Elliott over to Sid Tripke, scored the game winner and it was just electric.”
Looking back and forward there is a lot of hope for the program. “The level of play has increased tremendously, if you could snapshot girls hockey ten years ago versus now, it is way way better.” Hoene says of program development, “every year it has gotten better and better.” In the future Hoene hopes to see competition at the younger levels too. While Missoula has been able to field strong 14U teams in the past they have struggled to find teams to play as other towns simply don’t have the numbers. This year the program has been rebranded from 14U to 12U/14U in order to better represent the true nature of the team. Hoene hopes that this rebrand will be a “happy medium” but is uncertain how the program will look in the future.
Despite a promising future there is still some concern. “Hockey is growing in Montana, but it is still very fragile,” says Hoene. It is up to us all to protect this sport for generations to come.
