Ice Hockey: Westfield starts girls team
Forget skating technique and shooting slapshots, coach Matt Gualtieri needed to first teach the new Westfield High School girls ice hockey team an important thing—how to get dressed. There are elbow pads, gloves, helmets, shoulder pads, hockey pants all to master.
“To me, it’s easy,” Gualtieri said. “I’ve been doing it for years. But to someone else who’s never done it, they’re looking at shin guard double pads, like, ‘What do I do with these?’”
Ally Hornstein, one of the few experienced players, said: “During the spring season, our first practice, I tied about six people’s skates. Nobody knew how to tie the skates. But I mean even you saw with that, like over a couple weeks everybody knew how to put their gear on. It was kind of like, baby steps.”
Yes, from tying skates to learning the nuances of the sport, things are beginning to click for the Blue Devils in their inaugural season. Gualtieri and the players aren’t concerned so much about winning and losing, but laying a foundation for the future.
Entering the weekend, the team was 0-5-1 having been outscored 46-9. Results that weren’t totally unexpected. Many of the opposing teams are full of travel players, while Westfield mostly dresses first-year skaters.
The real success is simply having a team, which was student initiated and is mostly self-funded.
“They’re go-getters,” Westfield athletic director Sandy Mamary said. “They put their heads to it and they really worked hard. The kids worked hard and the parents worked very, very hard. And also having 100 percent support from our boys program and our boys program’s parents. Every which way we turned to we found support and when you add all that up, you’re bound to succeed. … We’re proud that the girls really hold themselves with such respect and I’m proud of them.”
It started when Hornstein, who played since the seventh grade, wanted to try out for the Westfield boys team as a freshman. Her parents weren’t too keen on that idea. So, Hornstein thought she’d start a girls team. Instead of just dreaming, she met with Mamary.
The athletic director was supportive, but one problem—it’d cost $35,000 a season for ice time. Mamary said the school pays for the team’s uniforms, transportation, officials and other costs. The ice time, however, is too much for the budget. The boys team is also mostly self-funded.
“It’d be wonderful to give them more money,” she said. “It’s just, you know, you want to give everybody money, but just you’re a public school. So you do the best you can.”
Another dilemma was being able to field a team. Hornstein knew of two travel players that were two years younger than her in middle school, Maddie Katz and Maddie McDevitt. Hornstein, now a junior, figured the trio would form a starting nucleus when the two Maddies became freshmen this season.
The persistent students got their parents on board. Beth Hornstein, Jen Katz, Marty McDevitt and Dianna Snyder formed the WHS Girls Hockey Initiative Committee and met with Mamary in December 2015. The directive was clear: they’d need 13 to 15 players and a detailed proposal showing how the team could be sustainable for several years.
They went to work on the two fronts. Players passed out flyers and approached classmates. One girl played roller hockey. Other had siblings who played. “Or they just want to play because it’s such a cool sport,” Hornstein said. “Who wouldn’t?”
Once they attracted enough players and put together a fundraising proposal, the Westfield Board of Education approved the team on May 10, 2016. Next up: raising the money. The big event was a dinner and silent auction at The Grand Summit Hotel that Sept. 9, which Beth Hornstein said raised around $30,000. New Jersey Devils players Andy Greene and Jon Merrill signed autographs and posed for pictures, and Devils radio broadcaster Sherry Ross spoke.
Other funds came from private donations and a day at sportswear store Athleta, in which a percentage of sales went to the team. In six months, the committee raised the needed $35,000.
“It was unbelievable how the community came together,” Beth Hornstein said.
The Westfield Hockey Club recreational organization—which donated jerseys—held spring clinics for potential players. Gualtieri, who knew several of the families from coaching at various levels, helped out. He was also on Westfield’s first boys team as a senior in 1994-95 and had stints coaching at Scotch Plains-Fanwood and Governor Livingston.
The administration hired him as head coach toward the end of the school year. Gualtieri’s program-building philosophy is simple—everybody plays. The veterans are mixed with newcomers on lines, and everyone plays multiple positions. The objectives are to have the players develop a passion for hockey, have fun and to come back next season.
In all, Westfield has 16 on its roster with practices at Warinanco Ice Skating Center in Roselle and at Union Sports Arena. In addition to Hornstein, Katz and McDevitt, other players with experience include Zoe Tedeschi and Sara Wassermann. Megan Raftery, who is a position player on her club ice hockey team, opted to play goalie for the Blue Devils. Other newcomers like Emily Greaney, who played basketball, brought their athleticism to the new surface, while learning the rules.
Early on, there were plenty of offside penalties. Understanding icing took some time, as did, well, doing everything while skating.
“A lot of the girls are pretty smart,” Gualtieri said. “You could see a lot of them are athletes. So they’re good about passing. But it’s making a pass while you skate and catching a pass while you skate. So we try to work on a lot of those things in practice. … I’m going to enjoy watching this group grow from the basics to playing hockey.”
And those lopsided losses aren’t so horrible. Gualtieri noted, “They’re all supportive of each other regardless of the score. If it’s 11-0 and we score a goal, they’re celebrating like we won the Stanley Cup. They’re excited for each other.”
The team has started to develop traditions like banging their sticks on three and chanting Westfield. (“I said just be careful,” Gualtieri said. “You don’t want to break your sticks.”) The team joined with the school’s boys squad to collect toys and gift cards for the Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside during the winter holidays.
There are hopes to eventually start recreational programs for elementary and middle school-age girls. Word has gotten out. Hornstein said she was eating lunch at a pizza place in town. One man saw her wearing a Westfield girls ice hockey shirt and approached her with a question about his elementary-age daughter.
“He was like, ‘Oh, are you on the girls ice hockey team?,’” Hornstein said. “I’m wondering when I should start getting my girl into hockey. Like when should she start skating?’ I’m like as soon as possible.”
Hornstein also saw a picture that a little girl drew with reasons why the high school should have a team.
“It was meaningful because it’s really about getting the younger girls involved and developing the team,” Hornstein said. “It kind of showed that we are touching younger girls and we’re inspiring them. They’re going to be able to express themselves. I don’t know, there are just more opportunities for them at the high school now.”
Staff Writer Andy Mendlowitz: amendlowit@gannett.com; on Twitter: @andy_mendlowitz
