Dauphin Kings are RBC Royal Bank Cup Bound!

Author: Billy Keane

April 15, 2010

The Dauphin Kings of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League are preparing to challenge for the RBC Cup, representative of Junior ‘A’ superiority in Canada.  The Kings will face the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s La Ronge Ice Wolves in the Anavet Cup which be the SJHL’s representative an opportunity to soften up the Kings before both teams actually start competing for the big prize.   La Ronge is also competing the in the RBC championship event due to Dauphin being the host team in the event.

The Kings have a Winnipeg flavor with Assistant Coach and Director of Marketing David Anning , and a #1 goaltender in Joe “the Squid” Caligiuri.  Anning, the most “up and coming coach” in the MJHL, will assist Head Coach Marlon Murray in this pressure cooker of an event.  Caligiuri, a former Winnipeg Wild stand-out, will be counted on to be at his best if they are to win the RBC trophy.  Everyone who knows these two great guys from South St. Vital wishes them well.

Female Hockey only! Be careful what you wish for!

Winnipeg Minor Hockey Association is preparing for it’s annual Rules and Reg’s meeting, and there is significant discussion about all area associations creating a Female only Novice “House League” program.  This proposed program would host female players only ages 5-8.  The current Novice House League program is co-ed, with and males and females playing together.

I am fully supportive of Female only Hockey, and actively support it’s development.  However, I am concerned that by removing the boys from the girls development would be a mistake.  Very often I have seen the top female players who have played co-ed hockey blossom into elite level female only players.  These females have spent their formative years (i.e ages 5-12 ish) playing co-ed hockey.  The females who play co-ed hockey during their formative years seem to play the game with more “sandpaper”, and are generally more aggressive than girls who played female only (likely ringette) through their formative years.

I hope WMHA, and it’s area associations representatives, does it’s homework as it relates to studying this issue very carefully before they implement this change.  The homework should include getting facts and statistics from Hockey Canada about the development patterns of our top female players, and how this would effect the next generation of female players.  The findings should be studied and analyzed before such a change is mandated.  If the findings show that a significant portion of our top females have played co-ed hockey up to a certain age, then use that as information and move forward.  Conversely, if the top players have played female only or ringette and have excelled in that envoirnment, then so be it.  I truly hope the decisions are made after due diligence, which would include getting the facts about the female hockey development.

After all, we are #1 in the world for a reason – why monkey around with model!

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