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It Starts With a Stick (and Ends with a Smile)

04/26/2016, 11:15am MDT
By Dan Marrazza

Sometimes, things aren’t exactly as they seem. 

This is often the case when it comes to running a youth hockey program in the United States. 

Where budgets are usually tight, funding difficult to come by and registration numbers occasionally reliant on families’ ability to afford a sport in a difficult economy, any opportunity for a program to receive a little aid is often a godsend.

When it comes to the Colorado Select Girls Hockey Association, that godsend came in the form of USA Hockey’s It Starts With a Stick program, which recently facilitated more than three dozen young Colorado girls receiving their very own hockey stick, without charge, courtesy of USA Hockey.

“One of the cool things about the stick program is that it allows us the opportunity to give kids a stick they can keep,” said Kendall Hanley, Colorado Select Girls Hockey Association director of hockey.

Launched in December 2014, It Starts with a Stick was designed to raise the money needed to put more than 12,000 free sticks in the hands of youth hockey players around the country. Since its inception two years ago, the program has successfully donated new sticks to 24,000 players.

“I remember being a kid and I drove my mom nuts, stickhandling in the kitchen, and stickhandling on the deck, stickhandling on the street,” Hanley said. “It helped grow my love of hockey, just because I had the tool in my hands.”

In the past, the Colorado Select Girls Hockey Association has been the tool for more than 120 of its graduates to move on to hockey at a higher level, 2014 U.S. Olympian Lyndsey Fry being most notable among them. But more than that, the program has been a vehicle for girls to participate in hockey, just for the sake of enjoying hockey, which before it was established in 2000, was exceedingly rare in the state of Colorado.

“We offer team options and program options for girls that are six-and-under, all the way up to 19-and-under Tier I,” Hanley said. “We have 186 girls in our program right now. One of our goals is to really focus on growing the game and providing opportunities for everyone to play.”

When it comes to a sport like hockey, just finding an opportunity to get as many people involved that want to be involved is often the largest obstacle.

“It’s more so the equipment,” Hanley said. “Obviously, kids at these ages are (constantly) growing. The barrier that I’d say is there the most, especially where I focus on the girls side right now, is the (cost of) equipment.

“We provide a lot of financial assistance, as well making it as affordable as possible for kids to get on the ice. Finding them equipment, sticks, skates. Just making it as low-cost as possible, this day and age, with the barriers that are at hand for a lot of families.

“It’s one thing when they get a jersey, but when they hear they can keep their stick, their eyes just light up. Seeing that, you’re like: ‘Oh, this is awesome!’ I think that program is a tremendously awesome idea.”

Actually, in some cases, things are exactly as they seem.

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