While the argument can be made that some girls develop hockey skills more rapidly playing with boys, the Prince George Minor Hockey Association believes girls have a better chance of reaching their potential and will get more enjoyment out of hockey if they stick to all-female teams.
Distinct gender differences exist in development age, intellect, trainability, maturity level, social and emotional needs and the PGMHA is convinced those differences are best addressed when boys and girls are kept separate on the ice.
As a result, changes are coming to the way in which girls will be assigned teams when they register to play in the 2011-12 season. All new players will be playing on female-only teams, while returning players of peewee age and older who have been on mixed-gender teams will have the choice of staying with those teams or moving to an all-female team. Before the changes, females of any age group could choose to play on boys teams.
"Right now we're still on the edge of parents thinking the male system is better and their daughters are better off there," said Dawn Bursey, the PGMHA's female hockey director. "That may be true -- when the numbers aren't there, you get a real cross-section of skill -- but we'll never get there if we don't have girls playing on girls teams.
"Our numbers have gotten to the point where we have to organize the females and get something in place, rather than an ad-hoc system. We have to come up with something that's more consistent year to year, and we have the numbers to support that."
Female registration numbers in Prince George have grown an average 10 or 12 per cent every year since 2003. Last year close to 150 female players were registered in the PGMHA, and half of them were on mixed teams.
"If they play together in [the initiation program] and in atoms, chances are, by the time they get to peewee they will want to stay with their peers," Bursey said.
Beyond the house league and rep team systems, girls have the opportunity to make provincial teams at the U-14, U-16 and U-18 levels, and can move on to college or university hockey in the as CIS or NCAA and, ultimately, the national women's team.
Hockey is all about teaching life skills such as team-building and learning how to interact with people who have different opinions and personalities and those opportunities are more limited for girls on mixed-gender teams, says Jason Garneau, head of the Prince George female major midget Cougars.
"Female and male players simply have different needs, focus and interests, particularly as they get older, which may complicate things," said Garneau. "A successful team needs to bond completely and become a family both on and off the ice. One of the biggest components of the whole team concept, which goes on before practices and games, typically occurs in the dressing rooms. Female players on mixed teams miss out on much of this."
Aside from the obvious rule in female hockey that forbids bodychecking, the female game is different for reasons that go beyond the skills needed to play the game.
"There is less physical play, more attention to angles and more focus on 'systems' than in your typical male game," said Garneau. "An all-female environment will provide a more level playing field. Even exceptional female players cannot compete with top male players. It is simply a matter of strength and development."
Bursey explains the reasons for league's new direction in the PGMHA's Female Development Initiative Report, now available on the website, www.pgmha.com. The female committee based its recommendations on information available from Hockey Canada and through surveys of parents, coaches and league officials, locally and in outlying communities.
Bursey hopes the policy changes will create sufficient numbers in all age divisions to avoid situations like that of last season's peewee rep team, which had only 14 players, one less than the minimum required by Hockey Canada.
"We were one player short of icing a peewee female rep team that I think would have put P.G. on the map, there were so many talented players but we couldn't go ahead with it," said Bursey.
"The challenge is getting the parents educated that their daughters aren't necessarily going to develop better on a boys team."
