The girls are back in town

By Michael Gorman

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

If organizers of last year’s Chicks with Sticks female hockey tournament were pleased with the response last year, they’re going to love this year.

The tournament, which starts today with preliminary games in Clare and Shelburne before coming to the Mariners Centre for Saturday and Sunday, has 31 teams coming from around the province, including three local teams, to compete at the atom, bantam, peewee and midget levels.

Wayne Hamilton of the South West Shore Development Authority, one of the organizers, said the group and area earned the faith and support of Hockey Nova Scotia officials last year thanks to a successful event and now it appears that Yarmouth is destined to host the event for the foreseeable future. “Girls hockey needs a place to call home for a major tournament,” he said. “(Hockey Nova Scotia) was really impressed . . . We had a lot of satisfied teams. Some teams booked their rooms for this year after last year’s (tournament).”

Hamilton said they have as many teams coming as the community can handle, with hotel and motel rooms booked throughout town and beyond. In fact, so many teams are coming that it was necessary to use the ice surfaces in Clare and Shelburne for the tournament’s first day. To get any bigger, Hamilton predicted, would require adding more days to the event.

Jeremy Kini, president of the Yarmouth County Minor Hockey Association, said that although the group doesn’t actively try to recruit girls to the sport, enrollment amongst girls is up. Kini said he believes events such as Chicks with Sticks play a large roll in marketing the game to girls. “The girls are, from a local level, very, very excited about it,” said Kini, whose daughter is playing with the atom team. “She has no clue what she’s going into this weekend, but she’s pumped to play.”

Although the association’s goal is to build the game and develop players regardless of gender, Kini said it is also important to build the female program so more area girls might have the chance to one day move on to the next level with the game. “This tournament is about the girls; it’s about them, it’s for them, it’s developed for them to have fun . . . The energy (at the tournament) is unbelievable.”

Tickets, which are $5 per day or $10 for a tournament pass, are available at Mariners Centre.

LOCAL SCHEDULE

FRIDAY

2 p.m. Yarmouth midget vs. Acadia (in Clare)

4:30 p.m. Yarmouth bantam vs. Chebucto (in Clare)

7:15 p.m. Opening ceremonies at Mariners Centre

SATURDAY

9:15 a.m. Yarmouth midget vs. West Valley

1 p.m. Yarmouth atom vs. West Hants

6 p.m. Yarmouth atom vs. Acadia

SUNDAY

Playoffs all day at Mariners Centre