Eastern Commonwealth Girl's Hockey: Team Pages

Team Pages

The Program

The ECGH program will have girls teams at the U-10, U-12 , U-14, and Midget/High School levels. For the U-10, U-12, and U-14 age groups there are three levels of teams - State Tournament, Competitive, and Learn to Skate. The Midget/High School plays in the spring and will have two teams. All ages are determined as of December 31st. See the individual team pages for details and costs.

U-10/U-12/U-14

Tournament Bound (A1 Level)

The Tournament Bound program is designed for girls with a number of years of competitive hockey experience, either from ECGH or in other hockey leagues and have mastered basic skating and hockey skills. They should consider this program to be their primary sport during the winter. The goal of the Tournament Bound program is to continue developing more advanced hockey skills, while participating in the most competitive division of the Middlesex Yankee Conference Girls’ League, invitational tournaments during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and other potential New England tournaments.

This program formally begins in September. Tryouts are required, and only the most skilled players will be invited to join this program. It focuses on improving advanced hockey skills, including skating with power and agility, heads-up passing and shooting, positional play with a combination of drills, competitions, game simulations, and scrimmages. Instruction will be given by coaches, as well as a bi-weekly session with a skilled hockey-training group – T.E.A.M. Training.

There are normally two practice sessions per week, mostly weekday afternoons between 5 PM and 8 PM at the Fessenden rink. Depending on the game schedule, practices may also be held at the Daly rink on Saturdays, or at Nobles at 7AM on some Sundays. The 22-game MYC regular season will begin in early October, usually one game per week on Saturday or Sunday, between 7AM and 8PM. Games will take place at Fessenden as well as other rinks in the greater Boston area. More information on the league can be found at http://www.mycgl.com/. Tournaments are typically within New England, including a Thanksgiving weekend tournament on Cape Cod.

Girls in this program are expected to attend the vast majority of practice sessions and games. While occasional exceptions for family and school conflicts are understandable, girls who are repeatedly absent may be asked to move to the Competitive Play (A2) program. In general, girls in the State Tournament program should not be playing on other hockey teams unless that team has agreed that ECGH practices and games will have priority; an exception is made for girls playing on a high school or middle school teams.

Competitive Play (A2 Level)

The Competitive Play program formally begins in September and is designed for girls who have had some competitive hockey experience, either with ECGH or in other hockey leagues, and who have basic skating and hockey skills. Tryouts are required to ensure that girls are placed appropriately; girls without the required experience are invited to join the Learn to Play program.

The goal of the Competitive Play program is to continue developing hockey skills. The program begins with a focus on improving skating, passing, shooting and game simulation as well as scrimmages. Instruction will be given by coaches, as well as a bi-weekly session with a skilled hockey-training group – T.E.A.M. Training.

In October, the program will shift to a combination of continued twice weekly practice sessions, and formal games within the Middlesex Yankee Conference Girls' league. There are normally two practice sessions per week, mostly weekday afternoons between 5 PM and 8 PM at the Fessenden rink. Depending on the game schedule, practices may also be held at the Daly rink on Saturdays, or at Nobles at 7AM on some Sundays. The 22-game MYC regular season will begin in early October, usually one game per week on Saturday or Sunday, between 7AM and 8PM. Games will take place at Fessenden as well as other rinks in the greater Boston area. More information on the league can be found at http://www.mycgl.com/.

Learn To Play

Learn to Play is designed for girls that have some skating experience, but little or no hockey experience. The goal of the program is to develop hockey skills (hockey skating, passing, shooting, and positional play) in order to advance into the Competitive Play program.

The Learn to Play program formally begins in early November. There will be optional training sessions available in September and October to help prepare players for the season. Details will be communicated in August.

For the first four weeks, practices will focus on learning and improving hockey skating, passing, and shooting. In early December, game situations and scrimmages will be incorporated. Instruction will be given by coaches, as well as a bi-weekly session with a skilled hockey-training group – T.E.A.M. Training.

In early January, the program will shift to a combination of continued practice sessions, and formal games with other girl’s teams. There will be approximately 1 game per week. These will be either formal home-and-home games, or games within an existing league. This will be decided based on the competitive ability of our Learn to Play team. The reason for beginning play in January is designed to give the players adequate time to learn hockey skills before they begin competitive play. Games will take place both at our home rinks (Daly, Fessenden, and Nobles) as well as other rinks in the greater Boston area. The majority of these rinks are 30-40 minutes from Newton.

Midget/High School

The midget/high school team will be open to all girls attending high school this fall. The team will be picked based upon a competitive tryout at the Girls-midget team tryouts listed above. Girls unable to make these tryout dates need to contact Bill Walker before the scheduled tryouts to make alternative arrangements. The teams will play one game a week over a season of 12-14 games. The season will end the weekend after Thanksgiving to correspond with the start of the high school season. Participation is open to all high school girls, if you are interested please register on-line. Remember this is a competitive tryout and not everyone will make this team, if you do make this team you will be expected to attend the majority of the games.