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[hockeygod]

IIHF World Girl’s Day intended to boost recruitment

DONNA SPENCER, The Canadian Press, Sept. 30, 2011

The International Ice Hockey Federation's first World Girls' Hockey Day on Sunday may seem like preaching to the choir in Canada, where there are a world-leading 85,000 female hockey players registered.

But there are regions within Canada lagging behind others in the sport, says Hockey Canada's manager of female development.

“We still have a lot of room to grow,” Trina Radcliffe said. “We have the same problems in Canada that the game does globally, where we have those few dominant provinces and then the rest are still building.”

Roughly 40 minor hockey associations across Canada have scheduled clinics, festivals, games or fundraisers Sunday. The majority of them are in Ontario, but the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit, plus Yellowknife and Inuvik, Northwest Territories have scheduled events, as has Richmond and Parksville, B.C., and Tignish, P.E.I.

“I think it's huge for some of our Atlantic provinces and for Hockey North to jump on board with three communities was great to see,” Radcliffe said.

The event is part of the IIHF's strategy coming out of the 2010 Winter Olympics to develop women's hockey and close gaps between countries in international competition.

After those Games, the IIHF committed $2.1 million to a four-year plan called “Women's Hockey to Sochi 2014 and beyond.” The IIHF is supplying recruitment material to federations for World Girls' Hockey Day.

In Canada, events range from try-hockey clinics for four-to-eight year olds to games involving midget, university and Canadian Women's Hockey League teams. The OneGoal Hockey Foundation has donated money to run “Try Hockey” seminars.

“Those are brand new players, never played the game before,” Radcliffe explained. “They'll have access to jerseys, equipment, the whole deal, to give hockey a try.”

USA Hockey, which has 65,000 registered girls and women, says it has 76 local hockey associations and five NCAA colleges hosting events Sunday.

Australia, Belarus, Finland, France, Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia, Switzerland and Sweden have all bought into what will be an annual girls' hockey day, according to the IIHF.

Finland and Sweden each have less than 10,000 females playing hockey, while a country like Belarus has less than 100.

Radcliffe says she's in regular contact with her counterpart in Finland and has heard of some 60 events planned in that country for Sunday.

“For me, it's mostly that we have this one day of celebration finally for girls' hockey, but we want it to continue,” Radcliffe said. “We don't want it to be just like ‘OK girls' hockey, let's do all our events here and then forget about it.’

“We want our branches and associations to continue to support throughout the year and create events and celebrations ongoing.”

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