Youth hockey participation growing

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BANGOR – On a cold January evening two young teams of skaters glide onto Sawyer Arena’s smooth, glistening ice. For an hour they will participate in a sport that factors heavily in Maine culture.

The city’s Youth Hockey’s Bangor First Horizon and Waterville Vision Express, both Peewee travel teams, assume their respective positions and within seconds sticks, bodies and puck are in a flurry of perpetual motion.

The game is fast-paced, with puck and players headed in one direction one minute and suddenly going in another the next. Players come and go quickly from the benches as they take their turn on the ice. Goalies weave back and forth in front of the nets, at times stretching stick and well-padded body across the ice to block a shot.

Sometimes the puck is airborne. Always there is the click of connecting sticks, the slice of skates cutting the ice, the whiz of the speeding puck, the thump of bodies and puck as they bounce off the sides of the arena, and the shouts of parents and friends encouraging the young players.

Waterville wins this Jan. 18 game 7-4.

After 25 years with the Bangor Youth Hockey Program he helped start in 1971, John Benton has “an overwhelming feeling of excitement” at seeing how far the program has come.

Some 25-30 young people were involved at the beginning, according to Benton and John Dionne, Bangor Youth Hockey president. This season, more than 260 are participating.

The program sees about a 10 percent increase each season, Dionne said, though this year’s numbers are 25 percent higher than a year ago. Significantly, some 120 of the youngsters are 8 or under.

Teams have 13 to 15 kids each. Instructional level teams for kids from age 4 to 12 provide them the opportunity to learn to skate and play, Dionne said. Then there are four Atoms teams, two for ages 8 and under and two for ages 12 and under. These teams play short-sided, cross-ice games, Dionne said.

Mini-Mites are a team of mostly 6-year-olds, and three Mites teams have 7- and 8-year-olds. Squirts have one travel team and two house teams for 9- and 10-year-olds. The Peewees are 11 and 12, with one travel team and two house teams.

Bantams, at 13 and 14, have one travel team and one house team. Midgets, ages 15-17, are a team of junior varsity players, kids not involved in high school hockey, and those who don’t have a high school hockey program.

House teams play locally. Travel teams are a bit more competitive, Benton said, and play teams from other areas such as Waterville.

This season saw the addition of a new team – U-12, for girls 12 and under, coached by Dan Perry with assistants Christine Henderson and Ann Lindsey. About 16 girls currently participate.

Next year, Dionne said, there should also be a girls team for those 15 and under.

Benton said that, compared to boys, girls tend to be a little more aggressive in their approach to the game.

“They tend to hold their own,” he said.

Other teams are co-ed, and about 40 girls participate on the different teams. Girls have been playing since the beginning.

Meaghan Smith, now 27, started out as a Mite on a travel team about 20 years ago. She also played on high school teams for Bangor, John Bapst and Kents Hill, then was on the Providence College team that earned a national championship. A character in the “Mighty Ducks” movie was based on Smith.

Until recently, Smith played in men’s leagues. She now coaches a tier II Bantam team in the Penobscot Valley Hockey Conference, and puts on goalie clinics for Mites through high school sophomores.

Smith also helps Benton with his Peewees, and notes that they share the same coaching philosophy of “developing an overall child.”

Recalling her time in Bangor Youth Hockey, Smith said, “people make a lot of friends in hockey. It’s nice to have a home base before branching out, and it’s nice to be able to return to Bangor. You have the opportunity to teach skills – and life lessons as well.”

For City Councilor Nichi Farnham, Bangor Youth Hockey has become “a family thing.” Two of her three sons play for Bangor Youth Hockey.

Scott, 11, has played for about five years, and Carl, 8, has played for about three years. Gary, 3, is still just learning to skate, she said. Learning the fundamentals of the sport is one thing her two older sons have gained from the program, Farnham said, while social opportunities are another.

“The neat thing about Bangor Youth Hockey is [the kids] have a chance to meet and play with other kids from the entire city. We tend to go as families to hockey,” Farnham said.

Dionne said the benefits of the youth program include “lots of recreation and physical activity. Hockey is a very interactive sport for all the kids involved,” he said. “This is a very fun sport.”

“If they’re not having fun,” Benton said, “then you’re doing something wrong.”

One of the objectives of Bangor Youth Hockey is to keep kids involved in healthy activities. Benton came up with a saying in the early 1970s: “Kids on ice don’t get in hot water.”

Working with young people and helping them be an active part of the community is important in helping them keep focused on the positive, and away from harmful elements such as drug use, Benton said.

He emphasizes ideas such as: “Success is being the best that you can be,” and tries to give the young people in the program something they can take with them such as confidence and self-esteem.

Benton, who coaches the Bangor Youth Hockey Travel Peewees, makes it a point to speak to each young person on his team before games, addressing a specific skill they can work on while playing.

Hockey has become an expensive sport, Benton said. It costs $350-$550 just to outfit a player, and ice time runs $140-150 per hour. There are also registration, practice, and game costs.

BYH teams have a minimum of two one-hour practice sessions for each game, in keeping with USA Hockey standards.

“The practice environment is where the sport is learned,” Dionne said. Mites play 14 games per season; Squirt, Peewee and Bantam house teams, 18; and travel teams up to 30 games a season from mid-October to the end of February. Four Friendship tournaments are held in March, and additional tournaments in southern Maine and New Brunswick.

For information about Bangor Youth Hockey, upcoming practices, games and fund raising events visit the Web at www.bangoryouthhockey.org.