Saskatchewan sees rise in female hockey players, officials

The sounds of skates on ice, pucks hitting the glass and sticks banging on the boards are almost here.

As another season of minor hockey approaches in Saskatchewan, more female hockey players than ever before are getting set to play.

Executive Director of Hockey Saskatchewan, Kelly McClintock, said the organization had noticed a steady increase in female hockey players across the province.

“The last 10 years we’ve seen almost close to double the amount of female hockey players,” McClintock said.

In the 2018-19 season there were 185 female hockey teams in the province, with 2,500 players of various ages — last season there were 261 teams with 3,800 players, he said.

McClintock credits the Saskatchewan Female Hockey League (SFHL), the Saskatchewan Junior Female Hockey League, as well as the Professional Women’s Hockey League to the increase in female hockey players in the province.

“That league (SFHL) is now well over 110 teams in it from U11 to U18,” McClintock said.

“We created a female junior league last year for the first time, (we) started with six teams (and) already have had one or two calls about potential teams in the future.”

Highest number of officials ever

“One area that was really positive was in officiating,” McClintock said. “We had the highest number of officials ever registered last year.”

That’s something that Trent Cey, manager of officiating development at Hockey Saskatchewan, has also noticed. The organization expects expect to see close to 1000 officials in the province this year.

“We do have a lot of officials who are in their first or second year,” Cey said.

For young people thinking about officiating, one thing that they might worry about is being yelled at by a coach.

Cey said the province is expanding a green armband pilot project from Saskatoon to help protect younger officials.

“Officials 15 and under wore a green armband which doesn’t signify their experience, it’s basically that they are young officials, .. and they’re learning their role.”

Senior officials will also help coach the younger referees.

Registration underway in Regina, Saskatoon

Hockey Regina Executive Director Amanda Hungle said a “good amount” of skaters were already registered for the 2024-25 season.

“Last time we looked we had just over 2000 folks registered to play for the year,” Hungle said, adding that this year looks to be similar to last year in terms of both skaters and teams.

Regina has had some issues when it comes to having enough ice time for everyone. Hungle said it had been a challenge for a couple years now.

“There’s been a rink offline each year for the past few years. Ice time is certainly always tight.”

While some places in the province have seen a steady increase of female hockey players, Hungle said that isn’t the case in Regina.

“Our female numbers have been pretty steady, although the female stream is an area where we want to put some effort into growing the game.”

Saskatoon is one of those areas where female hockey player numbers have started to boom.

Executive director of the Saskatoon Minor Hockey Association, Kelly Boes, said player numbers in the Comet zone is the highest they have ever been.

“We cracked over 800 girls in the Comet zone for the first time ever this year,” said Boes. “There’s another 70 or so girls who are registered in the other zones as well.”

So far, around 90 kids have registered to play hockey in Saskatoon this year, Boes said.

“We’re projecting to have about four to five more teams this year. We’ll probably have 257 or 258 teams in Saskatoon minor hockey.”

Boes said around 3,875 skaters are registered this year.

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