Good turnout for Muskie girls’ hockey tryouts

Jim McMahon and the rest of the coaches for the Muskie girls’ hockey team had to do something last week they haven’t done for quite a while.
Make cuts.
That statement may sound like a negative, and of course it is, but positives also can be drawn from it.
In previous years, any player wishing to make the team simply had to show up at the rink, sign their name, lace up their skates, and step onto the ice.
This year, though, the team had close to 30 players competing for roster spots, which gave proof to something McMahon already had known—women’s hockey is on the rise in Fort Frances.
“If we had 17 players, we had to take 17 players just to field a team,” McMahon, the team’s head coach since its inception four years ago, noted after the squad’s first practice together last Friday.
“This year, we had quite a few, we had 28 players trying out, and we did have some hard cuts and some hard decisions to make.”
“It was a very hard selection,” he added. “We went into the week and told the girls there were no spots reserved. Every spot on this team was open and if you wanted to play, you had to work for it.”
After struggling with a losing record a year ago, a new crop of talent has joined the lineup and the team is looking forward to the start of the season, which begins with an exhibition game against the visiting International Falls Broncos on Nov. 6.
“You know what? Our team is actually pretty strong,” said Mackenzie Caul, 16, in her second year with the black-and-gold. “We have a lot of younger players, which might be a little rocky at first, but they’ve got lots of talent.
“They have skating ability, and you can always work with people that can skate,” she added.
“It makes you think of how much better your team is going to be because there’s talent to pick from and there’s a lot of good girls to choose from, and the young girls didn’t give an inch.
“They made the veterans work for their spots,” Caul stressed.
First-year assistant coach Greg Hill also has liked what he has seen from the team so far, and hopes he can contribute to what he thinks will be a successful season.
“We’ll definitely be more competitive this year,” he remarked. “This year I think instead of working just on skating or stick handling, we can now work on better control and going down the ice because we have more kids that are able to do that.
“And I think that will result in more wins,” Hill said.
Courtney Caldwell, 16, also entering her second year with the team, was surprised by the turnout for the tryouts, which ran from last Monday to Thursday.
“I was actually quite surprised because last year was such a small turnout and this year was kind of overwhelming actually,” she noted. “Because you see all these girls who want to play, but it was also a little scary because there was so much competition.
“It was a lot scarier than it was last year,” Caldwell admitted.
“Everyone was pushing everyone because we all want everybody to succeed,” she added. “Some people make it and some people didn’t, it’s just the way of life, I guess, but everyone tried hard and everyone did a good job.”
Third-year veteran Ashley Whalen was delighted to see such a turnout and that women’s hockey is getting more attention.
“It shows that more girls want to come out and show the guys and other people of Fort Frances that girls can actually play hockey,” said Whalen, who added the team now must build on its chemistry.
“We have to bond and get along, and keep away from fighting, and stay on track and just work together. And if we have problems, just work then out and have fun.
“It’ll be eventful to watch,” she remarked. “It’ll be a lot of skill, different people showing what they can do. It’ll be a lot of fun to see what we can do.”
For his part, McMahon doesn’t see the growth in women’s hockey stalling here anytime soon.
“I think it’ll get bigger in Fort Frances and not only here. I think there will be three teams in Emo this year, where when my daughters first started,” said McMahon. “We had girls from Rainy River to Fort Frances playing on only one team.”
Whalen also mentioned something that most people know, but sometimes forget. “Girls can play, too,” she said.