[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Basically they have brought all the teams back into a Calgary only league. At the younger ages (Novice and Atom) they play in the general Hockey Calgary tiered divisions along with boys teams. That's not a big deal IMHO. I'm nto sure how Pee Wee is handled. Bantam and Midget teams used to play in the RMFHL which was a league covering basically Red Deer and south, and form BC to Brooks. It was geographically large and a lot of parents did not like the travel. Frankly for my daughter and myself that was the main draw, we enjoyed it very much.

There is nothing better than a long car ride with your child to spend sometime talking and getting to know what is happening in their life.

Plus GHC never really saw eye to eye with the league on many issues. They withdrew the younger age teams a few years ago and last year decided to pull bantam and Midget as well and withdraw entirely from the league. The problem is those ages are not at all suited to play in the boys league within Calgary and there are relatively few teams of girls so they decided to lump all the Midget A and bantam A teams together in a 'league' and the same with the 'B' teams. (GHC does not tier like boys do). So you ended up with a league of 5 teams or so, mixed between bantam teams and midget teams. I don't like the idea and as I mentioned earlier we know several girls that quit rather than make this change. That said, apparently the overall reviews have been positive from what I see on the GHC website , mayve my views do not reflect the majority.

If your friends daughter is young and is considering GHC I can honestly say they do a great job at that age. And the fact that the number of young girls playing is increasing means something good is happening too. Just having an all girls team is huge to some people and probably is the difference between hem playing or not playing.

I have spent a lot of time talking with Bantam and Midget parents, I don't believe GHC's info. Obviously m sample size isn't huge, but consistently the parents say the same thing, they don't like the Bantam & Midget changes. Also, I know from speaking to my daughter (2nd yr Midget) and her teammates over the last 2 years they do not like it one bit. The season drags out and they play each other way too many times.

I have heard a number of stories about why there isn't a "Greater Calgary Female League" consiting of Calgary, Okotoks, Cochrane, Strathmore, Airdrie. Everything from HC won't allow it, to GHC cut out the surrounding associations. The fix seems so simple to me, create that league with surrounding communities in it.[/quote]

And if she is older, or as she gets older the entier Elite model has been recently revamped in Alberta over the past few years and there are some excellent choices for girls to play high level hockey now.

I'm not a fan of the changes at the community level in bantam/midget but there are a lot of good things GHC has done.

GHC is focused on Peewee and below and Bantam/Midget Elite and above. I really don't think they care about Bantam/Midget B & A players and that is a shame.