Equal Footing : Women Take to the Ice to Form Hockey League of Their Own in Anaheim

When a helmeted referee dropped a hockey puck on the center of an Anaheim ice rink Sunday afternoon, it wasn’t just to start one of the dozens of recreational hockey games that take place across the Southland each weekend, but to strike a blow for gender equity.

That’s because the teams on either side of the referee were part of what is, to the best of anyone’s recollection, the first amateur hockey league in Southern California established exclusively for women.

Tired of honing their skating and shooting techniques only to be shoved aside by bulkier men in co-ed competition, 80 women from as far away as Santa Clarita and San Diego have enrolled in the league, which has scheduled games every weekend at the Glacial Garden Ice Arena in Anaheim.

“It’s really a breaking of the ice in Southern California,” Kathy McGarrigle, one of the organizers of the league, said without a hint of irony. “The women are really excited.”

The launch of the league is a measure of the sport’s growing popularity among women.

There are 498 girls’ and women’s teams registered in the United States this year, up from 352 last year, according to USA Hockey, the sponsoring organization for amateur teams ranging from local peewee leagues to the Olympics. The organization said these teams are among the 24,555 established nationwide for members of both genders.

The sport’s drawing power in Southern California has risen dramatically in recent years, boosted by the trade that brought Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the best professional player of all time, to the Los Angeles Kings. The Southland craze for in-line roller skates, which simulate the look and feel of ice skates, also has fed the interest in ice hockey, McGarrigle said.

Most of the women in the league, she said, are Southland natives like herself who have picked up the sport over the past five years, and embraced its rough-and-tumble style.

“Nice elbow,” shouted Barbara Lipscomb, 24, as she watched from behind a plexiglass shield during the first contest of the afternoon.

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Lipscomb, a slight woman with light brown hair and a bright smile, was a competitive figure skater from age 4 to 14, but didn’t start playing hockey until two years ago, after she attended a Los Angeles Kings game and grew enamored of the sport’s elegance.

“The speed, the way they shot the puck--it was just as beautiful as figure skating,” she said. Now when she spends time at a rink, it’s almost always with a hockey stick in her hand. “When you’re a figure skater, you’re alone out there,” she said. “I like the camaraderie the girls have” in hockey games.

She plays left wing--a prominent scoring position--for a team called the Shooters. There are five other teams in the league: the Lady Hawks, the Arctic Aces, the Stingrays, the San Diego Wave and--drum roll, please--the Herricanes.

The Arctic Aces won the first game of the season, beating the Stingrays, 7-3. The loss was especially hard on Jennifer Waggoner, a 21-year-old junior at Chapman University who played goalie for the Stingrays and endured dozens of shots from close range.

Waggoner, whose two younger sisters also play on her team, admitted she was disappointed by the outcome, but deflected questions from a reporter like a seasoned pro. “You just have to shake it off,” she said.

The 42-minute game was much like any other co-ed game she has played in over the past few years, she said, though she allowed there was one difference.

Because women don’t strike the puck with as much force, “I can’t feel the puck sometimes,” said Waggoner, wearing so much protective garb that hardly an inch of skin was visible. “Goalies like to feel the puck when it hits.”

McGarrigle said she hopes that the 10-week season that began Sunday will lead to a 24-week winter league this year. The champion of that league would then go on to play the champion of a sister league in Northern California for the state title.

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To join the local league, players had to pay a registration fee of $250, which helps cover the cost of uniforms, rental of the ice rink, and the salaries of coaches who handle substitutions of the players and teach them points of strategy during breaks in the game.

The teams play by traditional hockey rules, although they play on a rink that is slightly smaller than regulation, are not allowed to “check” other players by smashing them against the rink wall, and are required to wear full face shields.

“We don’t get paid $200,000 a year to play,” said McGarrigle, 28, who also plays for the Shooters. “So we want our teeth intact at the end of the day.”