EVERETT – They gather for practice late every Tuesday night at the Everett Events Center, past their kids’ bedtimes and, yes, beyond some of their own.
Most of them hadn’t played hockey before this year and don’t fully understand the game, but that’s OK. Many are just learning to skate, and that’s fine, too.
What’s important for the 30 women who play for the Everett Ravens is that they’re breaking the ice in a sport that hasn’t provided much opportunity for girls and women in Snohomish County.
“We’re trying to introduce women to hockey, especially to younger girls, to show them that it’s a viable sport,” Ravens captain Sharon Ballenger said.
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
Ravens teammates Stephanie Lineberry (left) and Carla Heath prepare for their 10:30 p.m. practice at the Everett Community Ice
She started the team a year ago when the Events Center opened and the Western Hockey League’s Everett Silvertips brought a renewed interest in hockey to Snohomish County. After some heavy recruiting, a dozen women comprised the Ravens last year; today the roster is nearly three times that size.
“They are all really neat ladies,” said center Diane Wallace, whose husband, Mike, coaches the team. “They come from different backgrounds. It’s neat seeing the women on this team who started playing because they want to and not because their husbands or boyfriends talked them into it.”
They must want to, because each player pays a price beyond the sweat, bruises and muscle aches that are part of the game.
The learning curve starts at the bottom, because three-quarters of them could barely skate when they joined the team. Equipment, ice time and travel costs to tournaments push each player’s yearly investment past $1,200.
Then there are the late-night practices.
They last until 11:45 p.m., which doesn’t leave the Ravens much time for sleep before they go back to their daily duties as massage therapists, industrial engineers, police officers, nurses, dogsitters, store clerks, mothers, wives, girlfriends, teens and 50-somethings.
You won’t hear any complaints, though.
“The ultimate mission is to have a good time,” Ballenger said. “We’re having a blast.”
Ballenger had played competitively for two years with the Seattle Women’s Hockey Club, making late-night drives to practices as far away as Renton.
“When I heard the Everett Events Center was coming, I said a big ‘Yahoo, I’m going to start a team here,’” she said.
Saying “yahoo” was the easiest part. She worked six months to pull together a dozen players last year. The Silvertips also helped get the word out with free advertising in their programs and announcements at games.
“I would see women all around the audience pulling out a piece of paper and writing down the phone number, and I would run over to them and say, ‘I’m that person. Talk to me,’” Ballenger said.
She also would show up at stick-and-puck drop-in sessions at the Events Center’s community rink and zero in on other women who were there.
“Every time we’d see women at the open skates, we’d talk to them,” she said.
If some of them could have skated faster to escape Ballenger’s sales pitch, they would have.
“They’d say, ‘But I’m too old to play hockey,’” Ballenger said. “And I’d say, ‘Well, I’m 50 and I’m playing.’
“Then they would say, ‘But I really don’t know how to skate.’ I’d just say, ‘That’s OK, we’ll teach you.’
“There was never a good excuse that they could get away with.”
Now there are 30 players on the roster, with skill levels varying from those like Diane Wallace, who skates and handles the puck with ease, to others who spend considerable energy staying upright.
“Some of them were like tripods out there, using their stick to hold them up on their two legs,” Ballenger said. “A lot of times they do the drills and hang on as best they can. But once they get over the fear and play a game, they realize it’s not so bad.”
Rules don’t allow checking, but body-to-body contact is inevitable, especially for players who aren’t steady on their skates.
“If you can’t stop, you’re going to hit somebody,” Ballenger said. “Most of the teams we play can’t stop either, so we do a lot of mashing into the boards.”
Even playing a novice-level schedule, Ballenger didn’t expect anything better than a good time this year.
“I thought we’d get our butts beat for about a year,” she said.
Instead, the Ravens are competitive. After going 3-2 at a tournament last weekend in Wenatchee, they are 5-3-4 this season.
“They are learning a new sport and a very difficult sport to play,” coach Mike Wallace said. “With brand-new players, you really have to take it to the fundamentals. People don’t realize how difficult hockey is to play. We watch the Silvertips and the Seattle Thunderbirds and they make it look so easy, so effortless.”
The Silvertips are doing their part to help the Ravens improve, from moral support to on-ice instruction.
When several Silvertips players got their first look at the Ravens’ black-and-purple uniforms, they gave the women a big thumbs-up, assistant captain Stephanie Lineberry said.
“A lot of the girls like the black, too, because it’s more slimming,” she said.
Tips forward Tyler Dietrich attends practices when he’s in town, helping the women with the finer points of the game.
“We call him our puck bunny,” Ballenger said. “He sits on the bench and makes believe he’s Kevin Constantine, drawing plays on our board.”
Before the Ravens’ first home game against Wenatchee last month, several of the Silvertips players walked into their lockerroom, turned on some music and showed the women the dance moves they often use to warm up before their games.
Besides the fun they have together and the games they hope to win, the Ravens’ ultimate goal is to expose more women and girls to hockey in this area. They are planning a tournament for April at the Everett Events Center and hope to use the profits to provide more hockey opportunities for women and girls.
They would love to see girl-only youth leagues.
“There are some incredible girls hockey players around here, but most of them are playing on boys teams,” Mike Wallace said. “It becomes very intimidating for a lot of girls when they get to their teen-age years because the size difference becomes a serious problem. A guy can be 6 feet and 190 pounds against a 16-year-old girl who is half that size. You lose a lot of girls from the youth leagues to that very problem.”
Diane Wallace, who is coordinating the April tournament, said the Ravens want to start a scholarship program that would aid girls who can’t afford equipment or team fees.
“This is still in its infancy stage, but it is progressing quickly,” she said. “With the energy this team has and the drive they have to make it successful, it will get there quickly.”
For more information about the Everett Ravens, visit their Web site at www.everettwomenshockey.com.
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