Arborg Minor Hockey hosted a female hockey day on Feb. 11 at the Arborg Arena that had female players from across the Interlake take part in friendly games, skills development sessions and mentoring of younger players.
Arborg Minor Hockey board member Kaitlyn Magnusson said this was the first time AMH hosted a day exclusively for female hockey players. Girls playing in U7 to U18 teams took part in sessions throughout the day.
“We hadn’t hosted this before and it was good for all the girls to come together and see how many female teams there are in the Interlake and how many young female hockey players there are out there,” said Magnusson. “We had U11 girls as well as U7 and U9 girls, and they really enjoyed meeting the U18 girls, who were a real inspiration to watch. They had a fantastic game.”
Brooke Barylski, who plays for Interlake Lightning Female U18 AAA and will be heading to university on a scholarship, said when she was growing up in Arborg there were not many girls playing hockey and it was inspiring to see how far the female hockey program has come.
“We didn’t have this when I started in hockey,” she said. “There were only two girls that played from the whole Interlake. It was a boy’s world.”
Playing with and mentoring the younger girls was among the highlights of Barylski’s day. The younger players really appreciated getting on the ice with the U18 players and learning as much as they could, she said. And the way they looked up to them was “very heart-warming” and made their day.
“It made us realize that doing something so commonplace like stepping on the ice with younger girls could really change their mindset; the way it is in a small town, you don’t really think you can go further because the girls all play on boys’ teams,” said Barylski. “Having them realize that there is somewhere they can go, and the look of ‘Whoa’ on their faces when they see what we can do, was most exciting for us.”
In addition to female players from Arborg, Stonewall, Teulon and Peguis First Nation, players from other Interlake regions, such as Lundar and Riverton, took part in the event.
Before Barylski’s U18 team played in the afternoon, they got on the ice with the younger girls for a skills session in the morning.
Players at the U11 level have basic skating skills, such as crossovers, “down pat” from previously taking figure skating or playing hockey and don’t need to practise skating, she said. The focus was instead on their hockey stance, always having both hands on their stick, moving the puck with their heads up and shooting on net.
“They had a little game then we hopped on with them for a little skills session for an hour. We did two sessions,” she said. “We had lots of interactions with the younger girls. They watched us skate and stick-handle and asked us how to do things.”
When she and her team hit the ice in the afternoon, she said there were a lot of younger girls who had stayed behind to watch their game. They made signs that said ‘Go Lightning Go’ and ‘Go Interlake Go’ and cheered them on.
“Afterwards we had tons of girls come up to us and say ‘I want to be you when I’m older’ and ‘You’re my favourite player.’ It was super cute,” said Barylski. “You don’t really realize how you can inspire the younger generation of female hockey players. It was nice to see.”
Barylski earned a scholarship to Midland University in Nebraska and will be getting her post-secondary education and playing hockey for the university in the ACHA (American Collegiate Hockey Association) Division 1.
