'Little girls … big dreams': Saskatoon sees a surge of girls registering for hockey

Interest in girls’ hockey has hit an all time high in Saskatoon and that’s encouraging for current and past players.

“It’s pretty cool that there’s so many little girls that want to play hockey,” Rachel Henderson told CTV News.

“I love playing hockey, so it makes me so happy that there’s so many other people out there who love it as much as I do,” Micah Pritchard said.

Just over 800 players between five to 17-years-old are registered this year in the Comets zone, which started in 1993 with just one team, according to the zone commissioner, who’s been at the helm for ten years.

“This is a new all-time high for us. We’ve been continually growing every year typically about 6 to 8%. This year was a little over eight per cent,” Krispin Zaleschuk, told CTV News.

Those percentages may not seem that impressive, until compared to numbers from Hockey Canada. Nationwide, girls’ hockey is only seeing a two per cent growth in registrations, according to Zaleschuk, who follows other zones across the province and country.

“It’s awesome to see. I don’t know if I ever thought that it would grow this fast,” he said.

Having a professional women’s league (PWHL) has helped grow the sport and Pippy Pritchard who played Comets and is moving to the university level this season agrees.

“With the new professional league, it’s super encouraging and I think that is a super good role model,” she said.

Her sister agrees.

“There’s so many little girls that are having big dreams that they want to be super famous one day because they’re amazing hockey players,” Micah Pritchard said.

Having one of those pro players hail from Saskatoon helps.

“My favourite player is Emily Clark, she’s from Saskatoon and now she’s with the PWHL,” Eliza Pritchard said.

All these players say the skill level has gone up significantly with more training opportunities for girls throughout the year. They admit tryouts are becoming more challenging as the years go on.

But at the heart of it all they agree that playing with other girls is the best part — they meet friends and work together to be their best, on and off the ice.