Local hockey league draws young female

puck-handlers from across central

Illinois to be part of the Lady Kings team

Yvonne Clearwater, left, helps her daughter, Kalynn, tighten her skates before practice begins for the Springfield Youth Hockey Association’s Springfield Lady Kings at the Nelson Center.  Kalynn has played with the team for five years.

Story by TAMARA BROWNING

 Photos by TED SCHURTER

On a recent Tuesday evening, Eric Thurman, head coach of Springfield Youth Hockey As­sociation’s varsity girls’ ice hockey team, leads the players through drills and a scrimmage.

The hour-long practice is a time for building stamina, strengthening the athletes’ legs, refining their work on their skates and improving their of­fensive and defensive moves with the puck.

“Figure eights. Three minutes. Three min­utes. Nice, big figure eights,” Thurman tells the girls at the start of practice.

The members of the Springfield Lady Kings trace figure eights at Rink 2 at the Nelson Center. The drill is hard on the legs, but it’s meant to build up the girls’ strength.



Eric Thurman, the Springfield Lady Kings head coach, speaks to his team during practice at the Nelson Center. The Lady Kings have 15 players registered for the team this season.


“Bend your knees. Down low,” says Thur­man, who doesn’t use a whistle to coach be­cause he believes whistle-blowing projects a demand instead of a request.

The team performs another drill that works on each player’s explosive skating speed.

Thurman tells one girl she’s dragging her foot — a no-no that can slow down a player. He can assess the unacceptable maneuver be­cause he sees marks on the ice.

“The ice will tell on you,” Thurman says.

Near the end of practice, some of the girls’ verbal and nonverbal communications show how tough practice is.


Kaylee Edwards, left, Kari Huddleston and Caitlin Ward wait in line for a practice drill. This year’s roster also includes Jenna Edwards, Ally Edwards, Allie Lantz, Ciara Gobelman, Christy Huffman, Taylor Jett, Sam O’Connor, Camille Dhom, Bailey Zumer, Kalynn Clearwater, Sabrina Canada and Tyranie Cox.

One girl is dripping in sweat after taking off her helmet. Another girl announces she feels like vomiting.

The next morning — presumably after a good night’s sleep — team captain Jenna Ed­wards, 19, explains why she got into ice hockey and why she stays.

Jenna began playing street hockey years ago with her friends in Mechanicsburg, where she lives. A vacation to Colorado sparked an interest in ice hockey.

“We went ice skating, and they had a little hock­ey clinic. It was like a one-day clinic, and I wanted to do it. My mom let me do it, and I then bought skates there and came home and started playing,” says Jenna, who started with a SYHA league with boys before the girls’ team was established.

“I mainly like it for the adrenaline rush that’s in it. It’s a team sport, and I love being as a team to­gether and doing things as a team. Makes it fun.”

While this will be Jenna’s last year on the Lady Kings — the girls’ team is for ages 19 and younger — she plans to play in a men’s league once in a while because there’s no college team locally with women’s ice hockey.

“A lot of people think that girls are not very tough and they shouldn’t play hockey and that it’s not going to be as physical with girls playing hockey,” Jenna says.

Sometimes checking — a rough-and-tumble defensive tactic in men’s hockey used to forcibly take the puck or remove an opponent from play — comes along by accident, but “nobody’s out there to hurt anybody,” she said.

Participation on the upswing

Ice hockey is known as the world’s fastest team sport. Many of the world’s top players can skate between 20 and 25 mph for short bursts, and the hard, rubber puck can travel almost 100 mph when it is fired toward an opponent’s net.

The object of hockey is to score goals by putting the puck into one of the goal nets placed at oppo­site ends of the ice rink. Players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade at one end.

During the 1992-93 hockey season, more than 10,000 girls were registered as players with USA Hockey, the organization that oversees amateur hockey in the United States. During the 2008-09 season, that number was closing in on 60,000, ac­cording to www.usahockey.com.

The U.S. women’s hockey team in February won the silver medal at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, falling 2-0 to Canada in the title game.

The U.S. and Canada have dominated women’s hockey since it debuted as a sanctioned Olympic event in 1998.

Springfield Lady Kings ice hockey got its start in 2004 with the help of founders Mike and Jill Zumer, plus Steve Gobelman (currently presi­dent of the SYHA and the girls’ team assistant coach). The Zumers were looking for a place for their daughter, Bailey, to play ice hockey after they moved to the area from Pennsylvania.

“They had a son, too, so they were both play­ers. They were looking when they came into our organization, they were wondering whether or not we had a girls’ team,” says Gobelman, whose daughter, Ciara, plays.

The Springfield Lady Kings have 15 players registered for this season. Players come from Springfield, and as far away as Pekin, Decatur and Topeka (near Havana in Mason County), and they play in a league that covers an area from Pittsburgh to Kansas City, Kan.

Lady Kings team players

The growth of girls’ hockey in Springfield, however, has hit what local organizers hope is only a temporary setback. This is the first season there hasn’t been a local junior varsity girls’ team — there weren’t enough players.

“We’re trying to get that feeder program built up a little better because that’s where our older girls come from is the lower-level league,” Thur­man says.

Thurman’s stepdaughters have been involved with the team. His youngest stepdaughter, Christy Huffman, 15, currently plays on the team. His middle stepdaughter, Brandy Huffman, 19, used to play but has aged out of the program.

Thurman got Brandy involved with ice hockey while her mother was in California for a wedding. “While her mother was gone, I bought her all of her equipment, got her in classes and every­thing, was behind the scenes pretty fast. Once she was already started, she couldn’t stop,” Thur­man says.

Ice hockey’s appeal influenced Jenna Edwards’ sister, Kaylee Edwards, 14, and their cousin, Allyson Edwards, 16, who is the team’s goalie.

Kaylee, a freshman at Tri-City High School in Buffalo, says ice hockey is fun.

“I saw my sister doing it, and when they start­ed the all-girls’ team, they needed more players, and I decided I wanted to try it, and I liked it. I stuck with it,” Kaylee says.

“People think it’s dangerous when it’s really not. It’s fun to just go out there and skate. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s fun to skate with other girls, and you meet a whole bunch of new people when you travel with them and go play in different places.”

Allyson, who lives in Springfield and is a junior at Rochester High School, also has Jenna to thank for her start in ice hockey.

“I went to one of Jenna’s hockey games when she played on the boys’ team. I was like, ‘Oh.

That’s really kind of cool,’” Allyson says. “When I moved to Rochester, I was like ‘Hey, mom. Can I play football?’ She’s like, ‘No. It’s too violent.’ Then, I’m like, ‘Well, Jenna plays hockey. Can I play hockey?’ She’s like, ‘Sure. Why not.’ “That year was the first year that the girls’ team even started, so I joined them.”

Dana Edwards, Jenna’s and Kaylee’s mother and the team’s manager, initially thought that ice hockey was for boys.

“Once I’ve actually seen the girls play, it’s kind of changed my mind about it. It’s really a compet­itive sport for the girls, and they’re very competi­tive, both my daughters are, so this was a great thing for them,” says Dana, who usually partici­pates in an end-of-the-season, parent-child hock­ey game.

Intense but playable


Jenna Edwards, left, and Sabrina Canada race for the puck during a skills drill at a Lady Kings practice at the Nelson Center.



Ice hockey is a multifaceted game where bal­ancing and skating on thin blades, chasing a puck with a stick, maneuvering the puck and per­forming mental skills all must be in sync for the performance to be at its best, Thurman says.

For example, being the goalie requires know­ing geometry, Allyson Edwards has found.

“You have to know where the puck is and where the net is and where you should be in be­tween it. Then, on top of that, you have to figure out where they’re going to be before they get there,” Allyson says.

Hockey also provides an alternative to sports traditionally offered to girls, says Thurman, who lives in Topeka.

“(For) my daughter, Brandy, the only thing that was available was basketball, volleyball and soft­ball,” Thurman says. “Well, at that point, up there, there are so many kids that she would never make the team. So, the alternative was to try out hockey, and once she tried hockey, there was no turning back.”

Many people shy away from ice hockey be­cause of the expense and because they fear in­juries, Thurman says. For example, it costs about $650 to register with the girls’ team, and that doesn’t include travel or equipment costs.

“That’s the two biggest downfalls of hockey. It has kind of a bad rap because they think that, ‘You get hurt,’ ” Thurman says, adding that the girls are protected because they are taught how to use their equipment and to position their bod­ies during play.

Girls use essentially the same ice hockey equipment as boys — the same gloves, elbow pads, shin guards and pants.


Though some of the equipment trends toward feminine colors, the Lady Kings skate fast and play hard, just like their male counter­parts

“The actual industry itself is marketing toward women, too, a little more now than before,” Thur­man says.

Although ice hockey has the potential of result­ing in spinal cord and neck injuries and concus­sions due to collisions, many injuries young women receive are bumps and bruises. Areas that are exposed on the body can incur slashing (getting hit with a stick).

“Girls have a little less control ’cause when they’re going for something, they’re focused on going for something,” Thurman says.


Allyson Edwards, left, and Sabrina Canada are ready to leave after their hour- long practice

A sophomore at Havana High School, Christy Huffman likes being able to say, “I can play hock­ey, because not many people can, especially girls,” she says. “Sometimes, depending on what team you play, you have to overcome fear of getting hurt. Some teams have some really big girls. … “I just think of playing the game. I don’t worry about winning. Just worrying about doing my part.” Thurman finds that girls tend to be a little hard­er on themselves performance-wise than boys.

“Girls compete a little more with their hearts and with a little more passion than the boys do,” Thurman says. “For instance, if something hap­pens on the ice where a girl may be offended by, let’s say, a play she didn’t make or whatever, she’s going to be 10 times more aggressive as a boy would.

“A boy would basically drop the scenario and just go to the next thing, where a girl kind of holds that grudge a little bit. It’s a little (more fun) to watch — a little more intense with the girls.”

Thurman says there’s a difference between coaching boys and girls.

“In a boy, you can almost just yell at them, and they do what they do. Whereas, a female has more of an emotion. You have to deal with differ­ent people’s attitudes and typical women’s things,” Thurman says.

Thurman is keeping his eye out for the Lady King who will be the third recipient of the Jill Zumer Award, which recognizes a girl who per­forms well on the ice, helps with practice, shows sportsmanship and leadership, and does well out­side of hockey. Thurman is looking for a well­rounded person. “When we coach, we coach not only just for the ice hockey part of it, but these girls are going to be going somewhere else in their lives. It’s part of that,” Thurman says.

“If they can’t be a team player here, when they go to the outside world, they’re going to be less of a team player.”
 

Lady Kings’ Camille Dhom, right, and her mother, Heather, visit with Springfield Junior Blues player Reid Mimmack before the start of the Lady Kings practice.

 

From the State Journal-Register newspaper (Springfield, IL)