When I came to Fairfield’s Parents’ Weekend with my parents when I was in tenth grade and my brother was a senior here, I thought Fairfield looked like a great school. Nice people, great performing arts center, close proximity to the beach. In my mind, Fairfield was missing only one thing: a women’s ice hockey team.

By the end of my freshman year, not only did the university lack a women’s team, but they had also cancelled the men’s varsity program. Oops. Looks like I should have gone to school in Canada.

It seems, however, that hockey enthusiasts at Fairfield are undeterred. The year following the men’s team’s cancellation, a men’s club hockey program emerged. What’s more, a women’s club team is now in its inaugural year. The team has 14 members, practices on-ice twice a week, and will play eight games between now and February.

The team will try to gain entrance into a league next year, which will raise the number of games. In the meantime, the women will battle teams such as UConn, Mt. Holyoke, and Wesleyan.

Erin Hickey ’08 decided to start the club program last year. She had played ice hockey in the past, and was looking for a way to bring the sport into her college experience. Thanks to her hard work, ice hockey as a “men’s only” sport is a thing of the past at Fairfield.

For several years when I was in my early teens, I dreamed of playing college hockey. I probably wasn’t good enough, of course, but hockey was my life. I played roller hockey and street hockey on guys’ teams, played one terrifying spring ice hockey season in a guys’ checking league, and then played on a women’s ice hockey team. (The latter was non-checking, but I did witness a fight which ended with my team captain spitting at the other team’s involved player.)

It seemed unlikely that I should have ended up as far as I did. My first experience with hockey was in fourth grade when my dad took me to a Flyers game, and he had to bribe me to go by promising to stop at Burger King on the way in.

After that game, though, I was hooked, and some years later, despite my mother’s worries that I was surely going to end up with no teeth, I stepped onto a rink for the first time. I was in seventh grade, wore geeky glasses, and was the only girl on the team, but I was determined.

Now, although it’s three years late in my opinion, female ice hockey players at Fairfield finally get the chance to show what they’ve got and have a little fun while they’re at it.

In fact, in the writing of this column I’ve actually been swayed to join the team myself, and while I’ll no doubt be a little rusty, it’s a great opportunity-not only for me, but for all other hockey-minded women who will come to Fairfield in the future.

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