It can be challenging to build a hockey program in Yankton, South Dakota.
Lacing up the skates and taking the ice is simply not intertwined with the fabric of a community with a population of a little over 15,000.
The Yankton Area Ice Association is hoping to change that, though.
“This is not a bad thing, but there are not a lot of hockey knowledgeable parents here because not many people here grew up playing hockey,” said Devin Anderson. “It’s inexpensive to buy a basketball and a pair of shoes and there is a lot of indoor soccer being played, so I try my best to recruit more girls to play hockey.”
Anderson is among several volunteers doing their best to help grow the YAIA. He is coaching a 14U girls team that’s making its debut with the association this fall.
The 43-year-old is well qualified. He played high school hockey in his native Minnesota and then attended St. Cloud State, where he handled video and equipment management duties with the men’s team.
Anderson also has four daughters, ages 4 to 13, and two play hockey, including an 11-year-old who is part of the 14U squad.
“This will be a challenge with the age range,” he said of the team. “The youngest kid we have on the 14U team is in fourth grade and the oldest is in eighth grade, so it is a pretty big spread from 10 years old to almost 14 years old.”
That is a minor detail in the overall scheme of things. After all, getting the young ladies on the ice and, more importantly, keeping them in skates is where the heavy lifting comes into play.
Ideally, the 14U team blossoms and leads to the creation of more teams. That would include at the high school level, which the association once had.
“Our biggest goal is to get a girls high school team,” said Anderson. “There are a lot of girls at a younger age right now that could allow us to make it happen. We just have to try to keep them with hockey.”
According to Karen Schleiger, the hockey development director with the YAIA, South Dakota has only 11 hockey associations and most have only about 150 kids.
“In our whole state, the number is something like 4,500 kids play hockey,” Schleiger said. “It is very small when compared to more hockey-focused areas such as Minnesota and the northeast. We are relying heavily on folks who believe in hockey and want to grow it.”
Schleiger, who has been with the YAIA for nine years, noted that launching a 14U team makes more sense at this rate than relaunching a high school team. The association previously had a junior varsity squad for roughly five years, which was elevated to the varsity level for two years before it dissolved.
“The last two seasons we have not had enough girls to field a team,” said Schleiger. “Rather than start back with a high school team and see if we could round up enough high school-age girls to make a team, we decided instead to start with a lower-level team.”
The hope among Schleiger and everyone else who volunteers their services at the YAIA is that the 14U team, which has a roster of 16 players, is that the new team thrives and ultimately serves as a spring board to achieving additional growth.
It may take time, but it can happen.
“As those girls get older, then we can get back into having a high school team,” said Schleiger.
Throughout October, the YAIA put in effort to get younger girls interested in the sport by hosting Try Hockey for Free events the first three Wednesdays of the month. Schleiger led those events, which were open for girls ages 4 to 10.
As the association continues to try to make hockey a more engrained sport within the community, little will matter unless everyone is enjoying themselves.
“My biggest philosophy is that I just want to see the kids have fun, for sure,” said Anderson. “I want to see them hustle and take things seriously, but what I want to see is smiles on their faces.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc
