December 8, 2009

By Mike Scandura
Special to USAHockey.com

http://www.usahockey.com/Template_Usahockey.aspx?NAV=PL_07_02&id=276158

Barbara Fay describes this season as a perfect storm for the Southern Flyers, a girls’ hockey organization that’s sponsored by the Nashville Youth Hockey League.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to get everything together,” said Fay, who serves as the NYHL’s girls’ representative and the Southern Flyers’ travel coordinator. “We didn’t become completely organized as the Southern Flyers until this year.




The Southern Flyers work as one to pull off their inaugural season.

“We had some outstanding communication and networking.”

In this, their inaugural season, the Flyers field travel teams at the 12-U, 14-U, 16-U and 19-U levels as well as a 12-U house-league team.

The difference between this program and the one that barely scratched the surface in 2004 is substantial.

“In 2004 a group of about 13 10-year-old girls who played on boys’ teams in the Southeastern District got together and decided they wanted to play in a [girls’] tournament,” Fay related. “They went up to the Brampton [Ont.] Tournament, but their big debut was the Country Western Tournament in Nashville in March of that year.

“The surprising part was they played in the Squirt Division, which was their age division, and they shocked a lot of people because they won. Basically, they were an expansion team. Most of these girls came together out of mutual respect and because they loved the sport.”

Over the next four years, girls continued to play on boys’ teams in the NYHL but came together on weekends to play against each other in a round-robin format. But when USA Hockey added Tier II national tournaments for the 2009-10 season, it helped grow girls’ hockey in Nashville.

“That opened all kinds of opportunities with the Nashville program,” Fay said. “We started pulling in girls from all over the place.

“Our 14-U team, for example, has girls from Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.”

Fay can’t stress enough the importance of having Tier II instead of just Tier I.

“Realistically for a parent who has a girl without an opportunity to play in an established program, Tier I is a hard road to travel,” she said. “Most families aren’t in a position to prepare their girls for that level.

“Tier II is more realistic. That’s why everybody is able to buy into this. We’ve had a few people who weren’t as tied into girls’ hockey because they felt it wasn’t a viable option. Now, all of a sudden, they have an opportunity where they can succeed.

“We want to shoot for a national title,” continued Fay. “Here’s a chance for our capable players to come together and vie for a Tier II national title.”

The Southern Flyers may already have given — twice — a premonition of things to come.

“We took all five of our teams up to the Ohio Buckeye Tournament in September and four made it to playoff games on Sunday,” Fay said. “We also took four of our teams up to the Hocktoberfest in Windsor, Ontario, and they did very well.

“The Canadian teams were surprised. We showed that girls from the south can play hockey. It was the first time a lot of our girls got to see how credible girls’ hockey can be. Sometimes our biggest challenge is getting through the heads of parents that girls’ hockey can be very competitive.

“The girls I work with,” continued Fay, “will do anything to continue playing the sport.”

To continue fostering that desire, the Flyers have established a basic set of principles.

“We felt we had to put together a program with credible coaching and make sure, skill-wise, everybody was up to speed and that they understood the game,” Fay said. “They had to understand the dynamics and that there’s communication.

“The best part is we’ve knocked our own people out of their socks. They realize this is viable and competitive. We’re adding momentum and seeing a lot of enthusiasm. It’s really heart-warming to see these girls come together and figure it out.

“But we couldn’t have done it at this level,” added Fay, “without all the people coming together … without all the little pieces of the puzzle coming together.”

Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc.