[UKUKUK]

Idea... Give Detroit the games!!!

[Giesela]

Ahh, I thought as much (some others ancedotal comments aside)
published July 2008, Traverse City
Olympians make hockey camp unique

Ruggiero one of 4 Olympic players teaching campers
BY JAMES COOK
jcook@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY -- Back in 1998, Angela Ruggiero spoke to a high school class in Connecticut.

One of the girls in that class is now her Olympic teammate.

Ruggiero and Caitlin Cahow are two of four members of the United States women's hockey team in Traverse City this week, teaching a new wave of players.

The two -- joined by fellow Olympians Jenny Potter and Molly Engstrom -- are instructors at the Just For Girls Hockey School at Centre ICE, which concludes today.

"I spoke at her school when she was in the sixth grade, right after the Olympics," Ruggiero said. "And now she's my defensive partner and coaching with me. That's the cool part, is you get to see some of these girls grow up and be great hockey players.

"Who knows, maybe one day one of these kids will be playing on our team?"

With women's hockey growing in popularity and colleges all over the country -- with the noticeable exception of Michigan -- adding the sport, girls-only hockey camps are on the rise.

The week-long camp at Centre ICE is only the second location in the United States that Canadian Hockey Enterprises has run a Just For Girls Hockey School. The other is in Lake Placid, N.Y.

"I've been counting down the days to this camp since March," said Kiersten Sprague, a 16-year-old Traverse City Central student who paid her own way for the $425 experience by working as a waitress.

Ruggiero -- one of the most well-known female hockey players in America, along with Cammi Granato -- says the sports is quickly changing.

"That's really the great thing about this camp is the opportunity to skate with Olympic athletes and Division 1 athletes and learn from them," Ruggiero said. "Growing up, I wanted to be on the L.A. Kings and play in the NHL. There were no women (in hockey) to look up to. So I think it's a great opportunity to hear our history -- how we got to be Olympic athletes, what goes into training and then see us."

Similarly, Cahow also lacked female role models in hockey.

"When I grew up, I watched NHL players," Cahow said. "I wanted to be Brian Leetch. And now these girls can say, 'I want to be Angela Ruggiero.' That is such a huge difference when it comes to motivating players to get better."

Growing up in California, Ruggiero must have felt like she was all alone as a girls who played hockey.

Not far from the truth.

"I was the only girl in the state in my age division," Ruggiero said. "For two years, my sister played, and then she stopped and I was all by myself.

"Now I ask, 'Who has played against boys?' and some hands go up. And, 'Who has played against girls?' and all the hands go up. A lot of them had to start off with the boys, but now some of them have a girls team they can play with if they choose."

Ruggiero and her family moved to Michigan and the metro Detroit area 13 years ago, where she has noticed the lack of women's hockey teams on the collegiate level. (so she was 15 and then went to a boarding school in Conn, her family may be here now so she comes back, but its not like from here or has spent much time here, never went to college here either)

"It is a little disappointing -- I'm not going to lie -- that Michigan hasn't caught on," Ruggiero said. "It is Hockeytown. There's such a rich history with the Red Wings. There are a lot of girls playing, but not many opportunities."

Wayne State is the only university in Michigan with a varsity women's hockey team.

Ruggiero says if one of the big universities in Michigan started a women's hockey program, they'd win a national title within five years.

"Maybe one day we'll see a women's pro league," Ruggiero said. "That's my dream, at least."

The youngest member on the 1998 U.S. gold-medal team in Nagano, Japan, at age 18, Ruggiero has also drawn attention for her time in the sixth season of "The Apprentice," where she made it to the final four contestants before being fired by Donald Trump.

She made history in 2005 by becoming the first woman skater to play in a men's North American professional league when she made an appearance for the Tulsa Oilers in the Central Hockey League, also going in the history books as the first brother-sister combo in a pro game, as her younger brother, Bill, was the Oilers' goaltender in that contest.

Unique experience

The camp, attended by 70 girls ages 8-17, is broken up into two groups each day.

Two Olympians stay with each group throughout the day, aided by several collegiate players.

"It's an experience you never expect," said 16-year-old Traverse City West student Rachel Gillis. "You never expect to meet somebody that is so great and has accomplished so much in their life. When you first meet them at first it's like, 'Oh my God, do you know who that is?' and then as the week goes on you get to hang out with them and it's like their your normal people."

Gillis said the camp is better at teaching skills than others she's been to, describing some as "kill camps" rather than "skill camps" because of their conditioning drills.

"If you walk into a room full of 13-year-old boys and say, 'This needs to be done better,' everybody is going to look at the guy next to him and say, 'I'm doing it fine. He must need to do it better,' " Cahow said. "You walk in a room of 13-year-old girls and say 'This needs to get done better,' and everybody looks at themselves and says, 'I need to do this better.' These girls are really self-motivated."

Cahow said girls actually progress in skating faster than boys.

"It's a fantastic opportunity," Cahow said. "Angela and I growing up never had the opportunity to play against girls, much less be coached by girls. So this is a really unique experience for us as coaches, and I know it's unique for the girls."

"I didn't play girls hockey until high school. It just wasn't an option. In my area, there wasn't high school hockey. Your only options were to play for a club team, which meant a lot of commuting, or go away to a boarding school, which I did and Angela did as well."

Saraya Uitvlugt of Fife Lake, a 15-year-old who plays on a boys bantam team in Cadillac, participated in the camp.

"She doesn't get the girl bonding with her other team," her mother, Chris Uitvlugt, said of the bantam squad. "They get that here. And you can't get anyone better than Angela."

"We try to have fun with it, but the off-ice program is the same program we're doing with the national team," Ruggiero said.

But it isn't all work.

On Wednesday, the campers broke out into a dance competition.

"These girls can move on and off the ice, which is impressive to see," Cahow said. "They just have an enthusiastic commitment to the game."

Olympics

Cahow and Ruggiero are looking forward to erasing a disappointing 2006 bronze-medal finish with something more precious in two years in Vancouver, British Columbia.

"I've gone gold, silver, bronze," Ruggiero said. "I'm hoping to go out on top and win another gold for the U.S."

Ruggiero started out with gold in Nagano, the silver in 2002 in Salt Lake City and bronze in 2006 in Turino, Italy.

On the world stage, women's hockey is usually a two-team race between the United States and its neighbor to the north.

"It's always a battle with Canada," Ruggiero said. "It can go either way on any given day. That's what makes it so exciting. We had a hiccup against Sweden last time and got the bronze, but we've shown recently that we can overcome adversity."

The U.S. bounced back to beat Canada twice in the World Ice Hockey Championships last spring to win the title.

"It was pretty exhausting," Cahow said. "We took a couple weeks off after those games. But it was tremendously gratifying. We were so pleased to put forth such a great effort."

Cahow, 23, and Engstrom, 25, were on the 2006 Olympic team, while Potter, 29, and Ruggiero, 28, are three-time Olympians.

Happy campers

"It shows you to never give up and there's always more to learn. It's so different when girls teach you rather than when guys teach you. I thought I knew a lot, but there's so much more to learn. I've learned to take bigger strides in my skate to get more power."
--Jenny Gies, 16, Traverse City

"You can learn from their experiences and what they've been through. They know so much. (Angela Ruggiero) has been one of my favorite players forever."
--Ashley Dotson, 17, Traverse City

"I've definitely learned a lot. I've learned how to snap the shot and worked a lot on passing and stick handling."
--Kiersten Sprague, 16, Traverse City

"They've been amazing. They really try to help us out as much as they can to make sure we do everything right."
--Elizabeth Reinke, 15, Traverse City

"It's harder to find all-girls camps. Recently, I had to go to Ferris State. I've been to a couple in Ohio." (I was stunned to see two players from Ohio listed as on the team)
--Jennifer Stevenson, 16, Traverse City