Women hockey players in the Lethbridge area head to Lloydminster – Lethbridge because there are no small local hockey options there.

Minor hockey is meant to give young athletes every opportunity to develop and chase their dreams on ice, but a handful of 15-year-olds from the Lethbridge area have had to look elsewhere to play at the highest level.

Ava Caputo and Callie McCulloch – along with two others from the Lethbridge area – will be playing at the Lloydminster PWM Steelers this season; one of only six female U18 AAA teams in Alberta.

Caputo and McCulloch played on the U15 AA Southern Express in Lethbridge last year, but as they grew into U18, it became clear that their local options were very limited.

“We don’t have an AAA team here, and we don’t have an AA team, so I really can’t play here at all,” Caputo said. “If I wanted to play at the highest possible level, I had to move on.”

The AA team had to give up due to lack of numbers when the four players headed to Lloydminster and a few others decided to go to the South Alberta Hockey Academy program at Medicine Hat.

Caputo said he saw too many of his former teammates quit hockey due to limited options.

“I knew there were maybe nine of them who had to quit hockey because we didn’t have enough players to set up a team here,” Caputo said.

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For McCulloch, it has been just one hurdle he has had to overcome to achieve his hockey dreams after playing on the boys ’teams until he was under 15 years old.

“You know, it went to the point that boys, locker rooms, and the like, you can’t go to the same room, so you have to throw in some field locker to go change,” he said.

McCulloch’s parents said they saw their daughter struggling to continue realizing their dreams, which was not so difficult for their two sons.

“The opportunities hockey for our boys have been much easier than the girls’ path, ”said Kevin McCulloch. “He just had to play hockey for the boys to get the teams at his disposal.

“Without the program at the level he wants to play, he’s forced to travel and move away from home – and that sacrifice hasn’t been easy, letting him move away when he’s 15 years old.”

There are currently 17 U18 AAA boys in Alberta, one of which is in Lethbridge.

“Boys have, if they don’t reach the highest level they try, there will always be someone to return to,” Kevin McCulloch said. “They can fall back and they can always play hockey locally.

“We don’t feel like girls have this opportunity; When they can’t get on those teams, it’s pretty much over for them. “

Terra McCulloch said she has seen too many of her daughter’s former teammates quit hockey because of a lack of options nearby; something that is tough for both players and parents.

“Just the distance the girls had to travel, many people don’t want or can’t take the time to get the girls where they have to go,” he said. “Because it’s not local, it’s a huge commitment.

“Maybe if we had a local program that could support the higher level of hockey the girls want to play, maybe more girls – in and around Lethbridge – could still make their hockey dreams come true.”

Keith Hitchcock, general manager of the Lethbridge Minor Hockey Association, said Lethbridge had a U18 AAA women’s program until about five years ago, Hockey Alberta reduced the league to six teams to make it more competitive.

“The numbers struggled, so they just felt there were no sustainable figures for the AAA,” Hitchcock said. “So they gave us AA in the U18 and U15 classes, and basically we’ve become an AAA feeder.”

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Hitchcock said elite players in the Lethbridge area have not kept up since the AAA program was removed.

“They’re heavily recruited into higher-level programs, and sometimes it’s hard to say no,” he said.

“If they want to stay home, we offer a good program for it – we run it as an AA program, but the same as AAA, we have dry land, we have extra ice and all that, but if they have it. A good player and they can play AAA .

Hitchcock said it was the perfect storm that led to the collapse of Lethbridge’s U18 AA program this year, but younger age groups are working to increase the U18 program, hopefully as early as next year.