May 1, 2023 at 8:07 a.m.
Shoutouts & Callouts
It's time to find solutions to grow girls' hockey
It would be especially easy, considering I sounded the warning alarms about this exact eventuality in this column four years ago when the Edge took on the fading Lakeland/Tomahawk co-op.
That approach, while valid, may not be a productive one.
It has been easy to point the finger at the reasons why high school girls' hockey participation has been on the decline for the better part of a decade -both in the Northwoods and around the state. Be it the desire to keep up with the top programs in the state, budget/facility concerns or just a simple number of girls getting turned off of hockey before the high school level, it's been a lot easier for schools and hockey associations to team up rather than build the game separately. With the Title IX box checked, it's also been easy for the WIAA to turn a blind eye from the dwindling numbers and let girls' hockey, more or less, run itself.
Playing the blame game, however, is a reactive approach to the problem. With now only one girls' hockey team covering the whole of Vilas and Oneida counties - and only 27 programs left statewide - it's time to start being proactive. It's time to look for answers to grow the game, both locally and around the state.
For starters, the schools and the youth associations, connected to the co-op must work together to build a unified, long-term plan. What are things going to look like in two years, when the current co-op agreement is up for renewal? After that, what are the long-range five- and 10-year plans.
Those are important questions to ask because, in our conversations with some of the principals involved in the new Northland Pines co-op, there seem to be differing agendas.
The sense I got from speaking with Northland Pines AD Josh Tilley is that he would very much like for this to be a temporary solution. Despite struggling on the ice last season, Pines, with the help of four small Wisconsin and U.P. schools in and around the Hurley and Ironwood, Mich. area, had the number to exist next year and would have the numbers to continue to fielding a team for several years moving forward - without the need for skaters from the Rhinelander, Lakeland and Antigo areas.
"This is a two-year commitment," Tilley said. "Are we helping those other communities? Absolutely. Are we locked in permanently? We never are. It is difficult to say to someone, 'Hey, we've been a co-op for x-amount of years, we're not going to co-op with you anymore because we have so many girls.' That's a tough pill to do as well. I definitely had to have that conversation with our youth and say, 'Look, let's just get through the next two years, figure out where we're at and, hopefully, Rhinelander, Lakeland, Antigo can start to improve upon their own youth programs so that if they day, 'Hey, we're going to go back to what was the old Edge,' great.' Not that I don't want them, but that's a good thing for hockey."
That message, however, does not align with what we've heard from the Edge side of the coin. The sense there appears to be, now that this co-op has been established, there is any opportunity to build numbers to the point where there can be varsity and JV, or at very least varsity reserve, outfits.
"Creating a program here in the north to be able to compete with the teams with larger number of players was my main priority," Brian Heleniak, who served as Lakeland's coach with the Edge co-op last year, told Lakeland Times sportswriter Brett LaBore last week. "We need options, we have always had just enough to play. This new co-op should allow us to provide a JV team as well as a varsity team."
Those sentiments seemed to be echoed by Rhinelander AD Brian Paulson.
"Right now, a lot of the state is going to varsity and JV," he said. "A freshman trying to compete against a senior in a physical game, that's tough. Even sophomores just going out for their first year, being thrown on the ice against seniors like the Storm or Bay Area, it's a very difficult challenge. So, for us to be successful, what do we do? Keep fighting the model like Northland Pines has or other schools like that, until you don't have enough kids. The way that hockey has been and the success of having a chance to compete and win games, teams are now going varsity and JV. You see more success that route."
Paulson alluded to the fact that some of the biggest co-ops in the state have more than 30-plus skaters, despite coming from areas that have multiple hockey rinks that support multiple high school boys' teams. The Central Wisconsin Storm - a co-op that includes Wausau East/West, D.C. Everest, Mosinee and others - had more than 30 skaters in the team photo it posted on its Wisconsin Prep Hockey team page last year. There are 30 in the team photo for the Bay Area Ice Bears, this past winter's WIAA girls' hockey state champ. That's one of the largest co-ops in the state, with 11 schools and an combined enrollment of more than 12,700 students in and around the Green Bay area. Another state qualifier, the Metro Lynx (Middleton) co-op, had 26 skaters.
There have been pushes, so far unsuccessful, from those in the north for the WIAA to put a cap - be it the number of schools or enrollment size - on co-ops. The dissenting rationale is that the approach only disincentivizes growth and that successful teams would just do what's necessary to stay under the limit. They would keep the schools/players most critical to their success while casting away the ones that aren't - thus further limiting opportunities for girls to compete. That thinking hold some merit.
There are some rumblings that the answer is rather to incentivize smaller co-ops and/or standalone teams. In the world of sports, nothing is a greater incentive than the opportunity to win. To that end, Paulson agrees with the notion floated by some that, despite having only 27 programs in the state, girls' hockey should be split into two divisions.
"I believe the state, you're going to see more schools splitting away, especially if the (WIAA) went to two divisions, they're going to split away so they can get back down to D2," he said. "You're going to see a school like Pines that was by itself of a smaller co-op of the edge be able to compete at D2 level."
Perhaps the WIAA throwing hockey a bone - something those in the hockey community drone seldom, if ever, happens - is an answer. Having a D1 and D2 girls' hockey championship game at state (with less than 32 teams, it would be hard to justify having semifinals for each division that the state tournament venue) opens up the possibility of going back to an eight-team boys' D1 tournament while still having a four-team D2 boys' state tournament. That would turn the state hockey tournament into a 12-game, 3-day weekend that could rival that of the state basketball tournaments.
In terms of growing high school girls' hockey participation, here's another, outside-the-box idea to consider - allowing eighth graders to compete on high school teams. That practice is not uncommon in some states, but has not been supported by the WIAA. However, as it pertains to girls' hockey, it seems to be a solution that makes sense.
That's because, in talking with people for this story, the eighth-grade year seems to be key point of delineation for girls. Without many girls-only youth teams in the area, if girls want to continue playing youth hockey, they are funneled up to the boys/co-ed bantam level, which comes with its own issues.
"This age is where most girls stop playing if they have to play with the boys as a Bantam/U14, this is where check hockey is part of the game," Heleniak explained.
Tilley concurred, saying, "Many of these youth (associations) have girls playing with their boys, which is fine. It's not a problem, but if they really want to look at the high school programs, per se, you really need to find to ways to get more girls playing early on so that they feel they're part of a girls' program and not part of a co-ed program."
While more U14 girls' hockey teams at the WAHA level is one possible answer, that gets back into the matter of battling for ever-valuable ice time in the winter. Allowing eighth graders to skate at with high school teams would simultaneously add another grade level to the pool for those teams while giving eighth graders a no-check option for hockey. By joining a pre-established high school team, there's no need to carve out practice time for yet other youth squad. Really, the only additional ice time demand would be for a few home JV games.
Is it an out-of-the-box idea? Yes, but so is having a two-division state tournament for a sport that has fewer programs than the threshold that was required (32) for the WIAA to establish a single-division, eight-man football state championship. What's more, if the goal - like Paulson and Heleniak stated - is to establish numbers that support varsity and JV squads, adding eighth graders could be a viable tool to get more developmental sub-varsity games.
Back to the present, one hurdle has been cleared for the Northern Edge, even if it comes with the loss of its own identity. The Edge will be the Northland Pines Eagles for the next two years, at least.
"One thing that's absolutely guaranteed, that matters the most, is that the girls from Rhinelander and the girls from Antigo and the girls from Lakeland will have a chance to play girls' hockey next year," Paulson said. "That was the No. 1 goal of the whole thing. We had to make sure those girls had an opportunity."
With that hurdle cleared, it's now time to ensure that girls in Rhinelander, Lakeland and Antigo have a better opportunity to play hockey in the future.
It's rare that girls' high school programs fold and then re-establish. The Beaver Dam co-op bucked that trend, merging into the Fond du Lac co-op for two seasons, before getting back on its own feet for the 2022-23 campaign. It will be interesting to see if those involved with the Edge are content to let Northland Pines be the hub of girls' hockey in the Northwoods moving forward, or are eager to rebuild and become the next Beaver Dam.
"Honestly, I'd love to see everyone get their own, individual teams," Tilley said. "I'd love see Lakeland have their own team, Rhinelander to have their own team. If you look at pie in the sky, it's not just going back to the Edge it's going back to every school having their own individual identity team."
For his part, Heleniak said girls' numbers in the Lakeland and North Lakeland youth hockey programs are increasing. Paulson said there was also an uptick in girls' numbers at the Rhinelander Ice Association this past winter, and the homepage of the RIA's website features a video promoting girls playing youth hockey. These are positive, proactive steps, but there's more work to be done. The ultimate success or failure of any initiatives will be judged by if and how girls' hockey participation improves moving forward.
The next two years are going to be critical in shaping the future of girls' hockey both in the Northwoods and around the state. For those involved with the temporarily-defunct Northern Edge co-op, it's time to get to work. Simultaneously, it's time for the WIAA to take a long, hard look at solutions that encourage growth in the girls' game.
"If people don't think high, then how are we going to get there," Tilley said. "Generally you get to the bar and they say, 'OK, we're good to go.' Well, let's raise the bar then."
I couldn't agree more.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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