• Private Schools
• Advice Guide

Bishop Strachan School recruits girls from Grades 7 to 12 for its junior and senior teams, and runs skills programs for younger students. For its efforts, Bishop Strachan School senior girls captured the Confederation Cup in their first appearance at the national tournament in Newfoundland. Similar opportunities and championships are cropping up at other private schools.

Previously, many girls "had played ringette and figure skated and, at a later age, played hockey, so the skill level varied," says Eric Lockwood, an Athol Murray College coach for nine years, where the midget women's team was the top-ranked in Western Canada in 2002. "There has been a progression in the last four or five years. Now 90 per cent of players have begun playing (hockey) at a young age. The prominence of the Olympic team has really contributed, and . . . is going to create more interest and more to shoot for."

Michael Mango, head coach of all three teams at Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine., says the school has the most developed high school hockey program in the U.S. northeast. "Last year, we had three or four girls who went to colleges with academically strong programs," Mango says. One graduate "returned with a 3.97 grade-point average (in) pre-med and played hockey the whole season. That's what makes the whole experience worth it."