Two figures are tinier than the rest when the 100 Mile House midget rep hockey team is on the ice.
Much longer, too, is the hair that spills freely out the back of their helmets when they fly around the rink.
Those are some differences, but neither matters that much really. Cassidy Mellott and Adriana Johnson are hockey players, and they handle themselves out there.
It’s no big surprise the attitude about girls and hockey and hockey being a boys’ game has evolved over the years. Johnson and Mellott, the only girls on the Mayvin Plumbing and Heating midget team are examples of that.
However, certain attitudes, although far from predominant, definitely still persist.
Some people think it’s cool and great they’re doing what they’re doing, Johnson says, adding some people let her know she’s different out there. Johnson offers an impression in a booming voice like someone is shouting down at the play from an arena seat. She says, “Others are like, ‘Why are you out on the ice’?”
It’s just different opinions, Johnson explains.
“You just have to deal with it and accept you’re different.”
The feeling of being “different” is something the girls have a difficult time putting into words or completely committing to. Playing full-body contact with boys is different than playing with the non-contact girls’ teams they’ve played on in the past. At the same time, it’s still hockey and it’s still a team and they’re just two other players trying to put a puck in one net while keeping it out of another.
So, it’s like the same for them – but different.
It’s not without its challenges for the undersized girls. It is a physical game and Johnson, 17, and Mellott, turning 16 in December, are not what’s considered – maybe even the two added together – big bodies.
Johnson was on the local peewee rep team a few years ago and there was hitting then. She was hurt “pretty bad” late in the season and stopped playing for the year.
This is Johnson’s second season playing for the midget rep team. There’s always the risk of getting hurt again, but she’s less fearful now.
“I hesitated a little bit to go in the corners [last season] because you can get smashed, but this year, I don’t know, I don’t really care as much because you’re going to get hit anyway.”
Asked about that, Mellott is similarly nonchalant and matter-of-fact.
“It’s just part of the game. You get hit and you get up.”
Mellott emphasizes the skill involved in the girls’ game. How, to get around “the hitting thing,” they need to be more creative with the puck and their positioning.
“We have to find other ways to be nasty to each other,” she says in jest. “But, there are some technical aspects that are a little bit different.”
Mellott and Johnson agree the calibre of hockey this year is about the same as some of the all-girls teams they’ve played on in the past. There are some big girls on those teams, too, and it’s rough even without body-checking.
100 Mile House had planned to have a midget rep female team this year. They hosted tryouts but there were not enough committed players, and formed a recreational tournament team instead.
There are girls’ regional teams in Prince George, Kamloops and Kelowna that Johnson and Mellott can or have previously joined in the past, but those teams are in Prince George, Kamloops and Kelowna, which means hours of driving from 100 Mile House or moving away from home. Needless to say, it’s an expensive and time-consuming option, but it’s also been fun for them.
Mellott played in Prince George last season.
“It was a really cool experience for me,” she says, remembering a “crazy game” that went into four overtime periods and the bus trips with the team. It was fun hanging out with the girls, she adds.
That isn’t to say their current team is a bad option for them. Johnson and Mellott grew up with a lot of the boys on the Mayvin squad.
“They’re like brothers pretty much,” says Johnson, to which Mellott concurs.
Both Johnson and Mellott – Grade 12 and 11 students respectively, at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School – excel academically and have scholarship and university plans in the near future.
Johnson has already contacted different schools about their hockey teams and hopes to balance post-secondary scholastics and hockey next year.
She will definitely try.
“I don’t think I can ever not play hockey. I love playing hockey.”
Mellott is also currently affiliated with the girls’ team in Prince George. They have a rule this year about players having to live there, though.
If they call her up, she’ll play there, she says. However, she’s non-committal when asked which – boys or girls – type of hockey she likes best or which option is ideal for her. It’s tough to say because it’s not one or the other – it’s both, Mellott adds.
“If I’m playing hockey, I’m happy.”
