I woke up this morning with this awesome question in my inbox about whether girls hockey players should play with the boys and I wanted to share it with you and hear your thoughts.

“My daughter is 8 and plays Mite hockey with the boys. There is a girls U10 team in our association, and the coaches of that team are interested in having her switch over, but she wants to continue to play with the boys. She even talks about playing PeeWee hockey and learning to check before the time comes to switch to U14 and then girls’ high school hockey. We have been told by parents of several elite girls players that we should “leave her with the boys” as long as she wants to be there. Any suggestions?”

Here’s the advice I gave her…

Many of the best female hockey players in the world played with boys up until their early teens.  When they first start to learn how to body-check at the age of 11 or 12, the girls typically have an advantage because they tend to have their first major growth spurt before the boys do.  They can usually hold their own on the physical side of things until the boys have their big growth spurt – and then the game gets exponentially tougher for the girls.  

The one concern I have with girls playing with the boys once they get older (over the age of 14 or 15), is that the physical side of the game becomes so important, that girls tend to focus more on survival than skill.  Let me explain what I mean by that.  As you move up the age groups in the boys game, the physical side of the game becomes much more important and that means that players start to play a “survival game”. They get rid of the puck really quickly in order to protect themselves from the big hit.  The interesting thing is when girls who have played the boys game at the higher levels move over to the female game, they will continue to play this “survival game” for awhile.  It takes some time for them to adapt their game and realize that now they have a lot more time to decide what they want to do with the puck because they don’t need to be worried about being drilled through the boards. 

It sounds like your daughter is really enjoying playing with the boys and I see no reason to stop her.  I would just make sure that when she finally does make the transition, she knows that she will have to adapt her game to focus on showing off her speed and skill when she no longer has to worry so much about survival.  I would also make sure that she starts doing some basic body-weight hockey-specific strength exercises to build the foundation of strength and the speed that she will need to play the game at the elite level – whether with the boys or the girls.  

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Personally, I only played house-league with the boys growing up so I was never exposed to full body-checking in the rep game. But I have always wondered – would it have changed the way I played the game for the better? Would I have been a more or less physical player? Would I have been more confident and comfortable handling the puck or not?

Should girls play with the boys?

Share your thoughts below.

~ Coach Kim