Michigan Girls Hockey League merging with LCAHL for upcoming season
By @MichaelCaples –
TRAVERSE CITY – Starting this fall, the Michigan Girls Hockey League will have the strength of Little Caesars Hockey behind it.
The league is merging with the Little Caesars Amateur Hockey League starting with the 2014-15 season, it was announced today during the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association’s summer meeting.
“Girls’ hockey is a unique animal,” said Dan Berry, commissioner of the LCAHL. “It really needs a special touch to it. The Michigan Girls Hockey League understands girls’ hockey very, very well, but lack a little bit of the infrastructure and some of the power in the marketing capabilities that Little Caesars has to offer. What we’ve agreed to in this merger is basically taking the organization within the Michigan Girls Hockey League and merging it with Little Caesars so that we’ve got the braintrust to grow the game of girls’ hockey as well as offering them the air support, the marketing, all the additional infrastructure that Little Caesars can offer really to give them the best of both worlds. It’s a win-win for Caesars, for the girls, for the MGHL and we’re really looking forward to moving forward with it.”
MGHL president Michael Wainwright will keep his spot, and Berry will work alongside him to continue the growth and success seen with the MGHL over the league’s first three seasons. Berry said that it’s hard to predict where the MGHL will go from here, but he’s excited to see what the girls’ league can accomplish moving forward.
“Time will tell. It’s growth, it’s grassroots growth, it’s getting girls in at younger ages, and then not only getting them in through Try Hockey For Free, girls’ clinics, come play with a friend, but once we get them into the door, how do we keep them there, and sustain that long-term to help grow the girls’ numbers. Ultimately, that’s our goal – to grow girls’ hockey.
“The other piece is that there’s such a wide variety of levels within girls’ hockey, ages within levels, you could have a really, really good 10-year-old player that really doesn’t fit on her 10U team, how can we make it work so she can play with some of the older girls where she fits in better? There’s a lot of moving dynamics, and I think that if we’re able to structure the leagues where we can allow for some of that to happen, it will benefit the teams, the players and just the overall quality of competition that there is.”