Maddie Carter

I wanted to write about a mentoring program.

At my old club we had two girls’ teams, a U14 and a U16 team. Everyone younger had to play on boys’ teams until they were old enough to move to the girls’ teams. This really had some impact on the amount of girls that stayed at the club and still played.

Then, with the help of a mom whose daughter was a U8 player, we created a leadership and mentoring program within the club. It paired older girls on the girls’ teams with younger girls on the boys’ teams. This program helped give the younger girls someone to look up to, and at the same time show them that they too can play girls hockey.

I was always so excited to see my “little sister” at one of my games, even after I left to play at a different club. It was always amazing to me to see how excited she was every time she saw me or got on the ice.

I hope other clubs will use this as an opportunity to grow their women’s program and women’s hockey in general (and keep kicking butt little sister!!).

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