What a St. Vital hockey association is doing to encourage more women to get into hockey

When Kelly Clarke was finally able to play hockey, she said it was a sport she got hooked on immediately.

The love for the sport led her into coaching girls' hockey, but some of the negative experiences with her coaches as a kid also drove her to want to be behind the bench.

"I thought, 'You know what, I'm a female, I know hockey, and I can contribute something that's positive to lift these girls up, and give them some competence and let them grow in a safe environment where they will foster a love of the game,'" said Clarke.

She is now a high-performance coach and recently helped push her team to a city championship win – a team that featured an all-female coaching staff.

She said the coaches, kids and parents were all great to work with and created a positive environment for all. However, that hasn't always been the case for her.

"I've had to deal with parents that I definitely know that they didn't have confidence in my ability just because of my gender, and didn't even give me an opportunity to have even a conversation with them to even talk hockey."

It's that kind of experience Nicole Carnegie hopes will one day not be in the sport.

The vice president of female hockey for Hockey Winnipeg said when she first got involved in the game – her daughter joining at five years old – there weren't many options for girls' hockey. But that has started to change, with more female players, coaches, and referees.

"Until you see with your own eyes the value of female mentorship, it's staggering. The girls just relate so much more to being able to listen and see in action other females participating in the sport that they love," said Carnegie.

Carnegie knows the game of hockey will continue to change for the better as more girls and women get involved in a variety of levels and positions – ranging from the grassroots stage up to the pro level.

The biggest change Carnegie wants to see is the end of the toxic culture in hockey.

"That's going to be the biggest thing is just make the culture more inviting. Continue to offer hockey programming for all levels, not just focusing on the top five per cent," she said.

"My nickname at Hockey Winnipeg is Nicole 95 because I believe that we can impose so much more positive change in growth if we focus on the 95 per cent. But yet, on the seven hockey boards that I sit on, we spend 95 per cent of our time talking about the five per cent elite hockey players. And that's not how we're going to change the culture."

But how do organizations work to focus on the larger population of hockey players and further promote women at all levels of the game?

Bryn Saunders, the vice president of female hockey for the Chill Program in the St. Vital Minor Hockey Association, has one solution to that. She has started a coaching clinic for women – whether it be moms, sisters, aunts or older female players – to get them involved on the bench.

"We wanted to see more females on the bench to positively influence the female young players to inspire them to continue on with their hockey goals and perhaps become coaches in their very distant future," said Saunders.

Saunders has coaching experience herself and when she first started, she had heard from parents that they were excited to have her, as their daughters had never had a female coach.

"I'm just hoping to see more females in sports period. I didn't think too much into it when I got involved. I just wanted to be a positive influence on young athletes and inspire them to look up to a female."

So far, the coaching clinic has 20 seats and Saunders said there is room for more people. What's encouraging for her is a number of the people who have signed up have kids who are in the younger hockey levels, meaning they could stick around longer in the sport.

"It might not be huge for the U13s, the U15s, now, but it's starting, and it's starting at U9, and we could foster this, support them, mentor them and have it grow to where more females are involved."

Danielle Fujita, the skating coach for the Calgary Flames, said she loves to hear about programs like this supporting girls and women in hockey.

She originally got involved in coaching because she felt she didn't receive the best coaching growing up.

"It wasn't helping me as an individual. It might have helped a little bit with my skating, but my self-esteem kind of suffered and it went to a negative. And I thought there's got to be a better way to communicate with kids and to teach and coach," said Fujita.

She started coaching on the figure skating side of things, which eventually morphed into teaching power skating in hockey and getting experience with pro players.

Knowing there are now programs happening to help women get involved in coaching makes her excited.

"I want to see that and I love that people are starting to see that women have a lot to offer, just as much as some men do. And unfortunately, we do have to prove ourselves a little bit more, that we do know what we are talking about and we produce the results that they're looking for. And sometimes, we're actually even better at communication because we've had to go through those bumps along the way."

For those who are interested in starting coaching, she recommends they learn as much as they can, taking in information from anyone and everyone, positive and negative, so they can shape what kind of coach they want to be and what they might want to avoid.

It's exciting for Saunders, Clarke, and Carnegie to see women like Fujita be involved at the highest levels, and hope it encourages other women to strive to reach those same heights.

"It's something to continue to strive towards, it's something to continue to work towards," said Carnegie.

"I think that if you have a dream, you definitely should go for it and you shouldn't let anything hold you back," said Clarke.

"We just want a positive and engaging experience for these young athletes and to enhance it for them and the girls can do it too," said Saunders.