Puck, be a lady: Growth of women's sport seen in Pond Hockey Classic

MEREDITH — When Talya Bent was learning how to skate, she looked at the other end of the rink and saw people playing hockey. Then she looked down at her feet.

“My parents tried to put me on figure skates and I wouldn’t have that,” she said. By the time she was five, she was a hockey player.

Bent was one of hundreds of women among the 2,200 hockey players who descended on Meredith Bay this weekend for the 11th annual New England Pond Hockey Classic. While it’s true that most of the hockey players in town are men, there’s a significant number of women chasing pucks out there, too. And, as event founder Scott Crowder noted, the ratio of men to women in the tournament will likely shift closer to even in the years to come.

“The sport of women’s hockey is growing,” Crowder said. “I’ve two daughters that are probably going to play. If you’re a hockey player, come out and enjoy the Pond Hockey Classic.”

There are two divisions – one competitive, one less so – reserved for women-only teams. There are about 120 women in those teams, Crowder said. But that’s only some of the female players, as the rest of the teams are co-ed, and many of them have one or two women on their eight-player rosters.

Bent, who now works for Casella Waste, one of the sponsors of the Pond Hockey Tournament, plays on one of the two teams her company sends to the tournament.

Bent grew up in Rhode Island and played on the first girls-only league in the state, then was recruited to attend Hebon Academy, a private school in Maine with a girls’ hockey team. She also played at the college level, for the University of Southern Maine. Now living in Portland, she plays in a men’s recreational league.

“I think the women’s game involves more finesse, whereas the men’s game is more physical,” Bent said. Now that she’s had the chance to play in both, she prefers competing in a co-ed environment.

“I want to walk into a men’s league and have not only women, but men, to know that women can compete,” Bent said.

Much of Chelsea Boucher’s life has paralleled Bent’s. Boucher grew up in Gilford, then went to Hebron and graduated from USM. Boucher also works for Casella now and lives in Portland. She is also still involved in hockey, serving as assistant coach at USM.

Boucher said the Hebron Academy program was still trying to find its way when she got there, but by the time she graduated they were a force to be reckoned with. Also while she was in high school, she said there were girls’ teams “popping up all over at private schools. It was really cool to see… I think it’s just more that girls are breaking out of their shells and doing what they want to do and realizing that it’s not just a boy’s world, and that we can hang with them.”

Boucher learned to skate on a pond near Sleeper Hill in Gilford – “I like to tell people I learned how to skate before I could walk” – and said that when she was young, if she wanted to play hockey, it was with boys.

“A girls’ team wasn’t even an option,” Boucher said. She credits that to her toughness. “You have to keep your head up when you’re playing with the boys.”

There’s a special pleasure in playing against men, Boucher said.

“Once in a while I can pull a move on them, and when their jaws drop, that’s good enough for me… It’s fun to go against them and show them what you’ve got.”

Another Casella employee and player, Sarah Healey, from Melrose, Massachusetts, said she’s seen an increase in female participation in the sport she’s loved since she was three years old.

“I think there’s definitely more than when I was a kid,” Healey said. She used to have to drive 45 minutes to practice with her all-girls team when she was in high school, she recalled. She wouldn’t have to go that far now. “There’s definitely more now than there used to be.”

Jiliane Gordon and Michelle Golden, both of Massachusetts, played against each other for the state championship when they were in high school. Now they’re on the same team, “The Bad Guys,” along with a group of their male friends. This year marks the third time that Golden is playing in the tournament.

“It’s fun, it’s really fun,” she said. “It’s all our friends. They needed extra people, so we said we’d do it.”

This is Gordon’s first time in the Pond Hockey Classic, but she said she doesn’t feel intimidated. “I don’t have a problem hitting (the men),” she said. “I just bounce off.”

Boucher started playing for Casella’s team three years ago, and said she has fallen in love with the Pond Hockey Classic.

“This is my favorite weekend of the year. I love it more than my birthday, more than Christmas. It’s like a celebration of hockey, just going out and playing the way it used to be is really cool, just going back to how it started,” Boucher said.

That’s music to the ears of Scott Crowder, who first conceived of the idea of clearing hockey rinks on the surface of Lake Winnipesaukee 11 years ago, with the goal of returning the sport to natural ice, in the open air, and playing with groups of friends.

“It’s a great experience, when you can have both genders sharing in something, it really comes down to that love of the sport,” Crowder said.