Who are some of the top female players on the ice in the various areas of the midwest and beyond. Some play on boys teams, some on high school teams, some on girls teams, and some on more than one team.

Here is your opportunity to scout who the up and coming girl players are and let the rest of us in on the future of womens hockey.

Your topic covers a wide area...It is like asking who are the best male hockey players..Mite? Squirt? Peewee?....Junior....Etc...

Although Girls hockey is growing in the northeast, it must have almost nothing in comparison to the programs in the midwest and Canada....I was surprised to see some Atlantic District Girls make a good showing at the USA Hockey Tournaments this summer though...

On the kids level, this years surprises in the Atlantic/NY area seem to be the Darien Ice Breakers 12U and the Quakers 14U....very strong considering the competition.

Actually the top girls program in the USA is in the Northeast. Assabet Valley is the top program in the USA for the last 20 something years. Connecticut Polar bears are not too far off. The rest of the USA is catching up as is effident at the last USA National tournament.

I started the converstaion to get people thinking and looking at girls who play this great sport.

Take a look at Assabet's website;
http://www.assabetgirls.com/
Connecticut Polar Bears
http://www.ctpolarbears.com/
The polar bear site lists a ton of girls teams under their link pages. Assabet has a link to the league that the Northeast teams play in.

You are right that New England has some of the finest and oldest girls hockey programs around. The rest of the northeast girls hockey programs are growing and will soon offer some competition. The Darian 12 U skated the Polar Bears 12U to a tie. Must have some strong skaters on that team as it is not a "heavyweight" organization. I would say that the Quakers 14U is just about as surprising.

As for the Polar Bears,,most of the girls are looking forward to their famous girls hockey tournament after Christmas..it is the highlight of the year and maybe we will see some more surprises!!!!!! Besides being,,,,,MORE IMPORTANTLY, a lot of fun!!!!!

The Quakers are an up and coming team. My daughter had the opportunity to play against the 14U team at the Toronto Future Prospects tournament, very nice families as well. The Polar Bear tournament is a great experience and offers several competitive levels at each age group. Plenty of college scouts at the 19U level. What team does your daughter play for?

My daughter plays for the NJ Quarry Cats 14U from Montclair NJ. The organization is growing and should be fielding some good tier 1 teams in the next few years.

Interesting how the mix of player skills at this level is. Because of the lack of opportunity and/or group loyality, you see a lot of individual playes that are capable of tier 1 level staying with their tier 2 teams. If they were boys they would have a team to move up to in their rink or just next door, but girls at this stage may need to travel may miles.....

The team are having a fun season, win some/lose some ..after a great year last year we are going though some reorganization and should be a really strong team next year.

What team is your daughter playing for?

She played for the Lone Star Wolves 2 years ago on the 12u team. They made it to Nationals as a second year program. This year is her second year playing boys AAA in Michigan. She played on a Canadian team at the Toronto Future Prospects tournament.

The skill level does vary from player to player with a lot of the girls teams, however as more girls become interested in the sport, the skill level has risen. Girls on the whole work hard and pay attention during practices. They really want to learn and the hard work pays off in how fast most girls develop their skill. It is a bonus that most parents of girls don't think they are going to the NHL so the pressure in the past has been less than on the boys. However, with colleges developing more womens teams, girl's parents are becoming almost as bad as their male counterparts.

Good luck to your daughter and her team. Do you have a link to the league they play in? What tournaments will her team be going to?

Not much of a webpage, but their link is http://eteamz.active.com/NJQUARRYCATS. They will be going to the Polar Bear Tournament over the holidays and probably a girls tournament around Philadephia in April. Being tier 2 the organization is not that tournament orientated.

I am courious as to why you moved your daughter from a girls team to a boys team? Was it lack of a quality girls teams in your area, or a chance for better quality coaching?

My daughter played spring league on a boys team and had no problems with checking and abilities as she is bigger than most boys at PeeWee level and has been skating longer than most of them.

There are about a half dozen girls at the rink skating travel AA and A hockey. Most of them will be fine until second year Bantam when the boys really start to outweigh them. Coaches that I have talked to have told me that by Midget it gets really difficult with the size differential and the chances of injury get greater.

Several of these travel girls have filled some empty slots in the girls team roster and played games with the team. I found their abilities to be consistent with the top third of the girls team, and while it was obvious they were good players they did not dominate the game as one would expect a AA player to dominate a girls tier 2 team.

The question of colleges is an interesting issue.....Do the schools recruiting players look at girls teams or girls on boys teams? Is the exposure a girl gets playing boys hockey worth the risk of injury or are most scholarships awarded to girls on girls high school teams?

I am not trying to put you on the spot,,,,,,just throwing these things out to promote some discussion. Hopefully some others in this group have some experiences and opinions....