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Girls’ hockey gaining a toehold in southeastern Pennsylvania

Growing pains are expected with a high school team in only its second year.

Growing pains are expected with a high school team in only its second year.

Some pains, of course, are different from others.

Consider what happened to a Haverford High player in a recent girls' ice hockey game. It was change-on-the-fly time, and the player, completing a shift, tried to hop onto and over the boards and back onto the bench. The jump onto the boards went fine, but she couldn't quite get over them and wound up dropping, back first, to the ice.

Occasional bruises notwithstanding, girls have been making a go of what traditionally has been an all-male sport.

Girls' ice hockey has grown into a 12-team staple in the Inter-County Scholastic Hockey League, one of three leagues for high school players in Southeastern Pennsylvania and the only one with girls' competition.

ICSHL girls' play is in its 11th season, and the dozen teams from Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties are split into two divisions.

The girls pass and shoot, forecheck and backcheck, dive to stop shots and, when they can, leap over the boards during shift changes. In short, they do everything that the boys do - except for body checking, which is illegal in girls' hockey.

"I am a firm believer in women's ice hockey, so I feel like the girls, because they can't hit, in a way it's like they don't have that excuse to hit somebody to get that puck," said Haverford coach Kelly Winther, whose team includes both experienced players, some of whom have played on boys' teams, and newcomers to hockey.

"They have to use a little bit more skill to get the puck from somebody else, or get around somebody, because they can't just hit. I think it's a little bit more of a finesse [game]."

Winther knows the women's and men's games, having played for the University of Delaware women's club team after transferring from Dickinson, where she played for one semester on a men's club team. She is one of three female coaches in ICSHL girls' play, along with Donna Helgenberg of Conestoga and Deby Larson of Downingtown East.

Conestoga and Downingtown East are among four "pure" teams in the ICSHL, meaning that all of their players attend the respective high schools. Radnor and Unionville are the other pure teams.

Haverford and the remaining squads are allowed to use up to three players from nearby high schools that don't have girls' teams - those players are called "nonconforming" - and middle-school students. In the Fords' case, Winther has two players from other high schools and two from Haverford Middle School, where she teaches.

The Haverford girls won the league championship in their first season, but they couldn't compete in the Flyers Cup, which is only for pure teams. Unionville earned the 2010 Cup title.

A number of the girls' players, including Haverford seniors Lindsay Baker and Mackenzie Dell, became attracted to hockey by watching their brothers play. That experience has had positive and negative effects. For Dell, playing ice hockey for the first time, the negative was getting too accustomed to the boys' hitting style.

"I always watched my brothers check and I forget that girls can't check, and then I'll check someone and get called for it," Dell said. "I'm still working on that."

Baker, in contrast, said she has played ice hockey since she was in the fourth grade. She still plays with a boys' team, the high school junior varsity.

"You need to be faster, and [have] stronger stickhandling for girls," Baker said. "But with guys, it's more about being physical and strong."

The ICSHL girls' competition began in 2000 with two teams, Radnor and Strath Haven, said Paula Jorgensen, former director of the girls' division.

Since then, teams have been added and some have dropped out. The league, which once reached a high of 13 teams, welcomed Avon Grove and Bishop Shanahan this year.

In the area's other high school leagues, the Suburban High School Hockey League and the Lower Bucks County Scholastic Hockey League, girls play on boys' teams. There are also girls' club teams in the region.

The ICSHL, Jorgensen said, has the largest scholastic girls' ice hockey division outside of New England in the United States.

The league's quality of play "has definitely gotten much more even," said Bill Becker, Lansdale Catholic's ninth-year coach. "We're seeing more and more girls picking up the sport earlier.

"I think across the board," he added, "the talent is better, the competition is better."