03/03/97 MAKE WAY FOR JAYNE GRETZKY

Return to main story

MAKE WAY FOR JAYNE GRETZKY

A huddle of hockey parents shiver on the sidelines of an indoor rink near Boston, watching their kids slap sticks. The pint-size skaters flash up and down the ice, knees bent and backs arched. Suddenly, out of the pack scoots 41 inches of pads and face mask--stick held low, legs stretched for every oomph of speed. And streaming behind the helmet of 6-year-old Stephanie Pagonis, in her second season with
Assabet Valley Girls Ice Hockey in Concord, Mass., a ponytail.
This is girls' hockey, and it is emerging as one of the hottest new team sports for women. The number of females playing what has long been known as a macho blood sport is startling: During the 1990-91 season, 5,533 female ice hockey players registered with USA Hockey, the sport's governing body. Today, registration is close to 21,000, and that doesn't count kids playing pickup games on frozen ponds from Massachusetts to Minnesota. Add 25,000 more playing on teams in Canada, and women's ice hockey becomes one of the fastest-growing games in North America.
OLYMPIC SPORT. One big reason for such growth is the change in attitude toward women's sports. In Minnesota, when rink time became an issue, women legislators in 1993 pushed through a law guaranteeing equal access during prime hours for males and females: In three years, high school girls' teams went from 8 to 67, amateur clubs from 20 to more than 200. Numbers like those encouraged Hillerich & Bradsby Co., the parent of Louisville Slugger and Louisville Hockey, to introduce a complete line of equipment designed for women.
In 1998, women's ice hockey will debut as a medal sport at the Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan. The game that many TV viewers will see for the first time next February differs from the National Hockey League version that often produces as many fights as goals. Women's ice hockey features the kind of crisp passing and adroit stick handling associated with European hockey. No checking is allowed, but that doesn't mean it's a wimpy game. Players chasing the puck often crash into the boards--and one another.
''NHL hockey is a game of intimidation, of force and strength,'' says Art Berglund, USA Hockey's senior director for international administration. ''Women's hockey is a game of skill.''
It is also not new: Women have been playing nearly as long as men. The first organized all-female ice hockey game was played in 1892, in Ontario, Canada. The first international match was held between the U.S. and Canada in 1916, a year before the NHL's birth.
Still, says Cammi Granato, a member of the U.S. Women's National Team that will compete at Nagano and spokesperson for Louisville Hockey's new line of women's equipment: ''We're introducing a sport to people who don't know it exists. We have a chance to...show them a pure form of ice hockey without all the blood.
''Seeing us will teach little girls not to accept other people's limits,'' continues the 25-year-old Granato, whose brother, Tony, is now an NHL All-Star with the San Jose Sharks. ''All my life, people said I would quit, that it's a boy sport--and that I was something strange for playing it. But I'm not. Girls need to know they can do this and be respected.''
Up and down its ranks, women's ice hockey seems to be about females breaking barriers. Louisville Hockey even preaches it. Says Kelly Dyer, an East Coast Hockey League goalie who is working with Louisville Hockey: ''Our slogan is 'Don't tell me what you can't do.'''
By the time Stephanie Pagonis has grown up, that slogan may sound pretty outdated.
By Skip Rozin in Concord, Mass.

Return to main story