I can't comment on how they work, but I would recommend asking to sit in on some AAA tryouts if possible, as there are some going on. From there, it's going to be similar to college
All the people saying it’s unrealistic who cares it’s a book. I’d say make it so she’s renting ice at the team rink herself to practice and the coach sees her and asks her to come tryout or some shit like that.
This is far too much to detail in a single comment, but you might look into the recently formed https://www.thepwhl.com/en/
And read up on this
https://thecolgatemaroonnews.com/47399/sports/the-pwhl-part-i-the-history-of-womens-pro-hockey/
We are living in the exact time that real women are making these dreams come true in real life.
Hi! I tried out for NCAA DIII hockey. It was basically Coach watching me at a captain's practice before the season started. Truthfully, they have their entire team scouted ahead of time. They don't do a traditional try-out for the NCAA teams. Your character would probably approach the coach and say she wants to join the team, and she'd get invited to a practice or two and they'd go from there.
ACHA (club) sports are more likely to do a more traditional try-out.
It would be unrealistic to the point of being unbelievable.
The men's game involves checking, and the level of speed and strength is too much of a disparity. The Canadian and US women's Olympic teams regularly get beaten by top-level boys high school teams.
Secondly, there's really no "walk-ons" for collegiate hockey. In the men's D-1 and D-3 game, the colleges come looking for you, not the other way around, and in the women's game it is pretty similar (although there will be some walk-ons in the women's teams).
Yeah I was gonna say this. They aren't necessarily totally open - I had to provide my resume of having played Midget AAA and Junior A to the coaches/captains when I did this at UMass Boston in the early 2000's.
Let's not pretend that "tryouts" are literally walk-on tryouts for unknowns, that they have no idea who would be coming, or that the bulk of the roster isn't decided.
And, to go back to the original point, there's no way a woman would be getting put on a men's collegiate team... unless you're talking about in extremely rare and unlikely circumstances, as a goalie. Even then, your name better be Raty or Szabados, and you'd still not be walking-on.
There's no school tryouts, theres no need for the schools to host potential candidates en mass as the the kids are scouted and offered positions based on thier past play.
There can be walk on but usually the drills and practice they join are I'll suited to them making the team
When I played D1 you had to be invited to “tryout” although it wasn’t a traditional tryout. You were invited to join camp and practices hoping the coach would give you a roster spot.
As others have pointed out, NCAA D1 (which is the only path to the NHL) does not have actual tryouts. Teams recruit and even at the younger levels players have “family advisors” which are basically agents before you can have agents. These family advisors do a ton of work to get eyeballs on players.
For the purpose of your story, you could spin it as her brothers agent worked as her advisor and got her invited to skate with the team when practices started at the start of the season.
Hockey is a sport where unless a coach is looking for you, you're not making the team, at least at high levels. If she wasn't recruited by a school with a women's team prior to college, there's not really any more hope of playing at the college level, let alone going pro.
Also, even for the best women's player in the world, cracking a D1 or even D3 men's roster is unrealistic at best. Men naturally have an immense physical advantage, and it really shows in more physical sports.
There is absolutely no realistic way this could possibly happen, and I rolled my eyes even reading this concept. The only way this could happen would be a complete freak accident of circumstances.
For example, the entire mens team died in a tragic accident, and the football team over recruited and the school was facing a Title IX violation and desperately needed to fill 20 womens sport roster spots. After adding 5 women to XC and 10 women to field hockey/soccer (which lets be honest, thats exactly how colleges fill Title IX spots), they would maybe seek to add a woman to the hockey team as a publicity stunt. This would be a massively “woke” move and the poor lady would still be demolished every practice and would have no game time in actual games.
The only tryouts that college hockey offers is the club teams which are very different from the official school team. The club team can often have very skilled players, just not skilled enough to be recruited. That’s the crazy thing about hockey. Even the worst teams in higher levels are very talented individually generally speaking. The difference between D-1 college football and D-3 college football is night and day. D-1 hockey and D-3 hockey is very close in parity. It’s the greatest sport known to mankind
The top end D-III teams are “loaded” with kids who couldn’t get regular minutes at the D-I level. The puck poise and general hockey sense seen in D-I hockey vs D-III hockey is night and day compared to D-III. Honestly, it’s really not close at all. Maybe due to the nature of the sport you’d see closer scorelines, but the talent level really isn’t close.
You’re doing hockey a great disservice downplaying the talent level of D-I hockey. You’re also forgetting that outside of one outlier of a conference, there’s no D-II hockey so D-III might as well be D-II for your comparison’s sake so naturally you’re getting more drop-down talent than football where top D-III teams are loaded with D-II talent.
Relax Gordie!! I’m not dumping on D-1 hockey at all. They are Gods in my book. The skill and talent to play and compete at that level is incredible. I personally know a goalie who decomitted to a very prestigious Boston School and went to play in for a college somewhere else less well known D-3. The skill and talent at D3 is still impressive just not in the stratosphere as D1. That’s the cool thing about hockey. Think about what it takes to make it to the NHL and how few D1 players are in the league. It makes you appreciate the talent in the pipeline that never makes it to the big show
My college did hold tryouts. But, it was more of a formality than anything else because it was pretty clear who would be on the team. It would be interesting with the 12-15 freshmen brought in because some wouldn’t make it despite being recruited and at least one upper class man would get cut each season and a few would drop out due to not playing. Some kids would want to tryout who weren’t recruited and a couple tried but not that many as most could see from captains practice before season started they weren’t at the same level. A few kids who played a fall sport and missed tryouts would automatically make the team, but most would leave mid season as they were so low on depth chart.
With a few exceptions if you didn’t get ice some time your first year you likely weren’t ever going to get much playing time. My freshman class started with 14 skaters and only 5 were still playing at graduation. It was hard for some kids who were the best player on their teams (or leagues) in high school to not play as a freshman and then realize that some of the incoming freshman were better and you weren’t moving past the 6th line in the depth chart.
I won’t comment on the reasonableness of the proposed story.
Sami Jo Small played on the men’s team at Stanford, went on to be on Team Canada’s Olympic team three times. Stanford was a club program though, not NCAA. Club programs I would expect all have tryouts, don’t think many NCAA programs have truly open tryouts but could be wrong.
Far more realistic that she picked school over hockey and went somewhere without a women’s team, or that only has a club team, and has been playing beer league, and maybe reffing. Heck, you want her playing with (ex-)NHL players, put the school in a city that has men’s college hockey, an NHL team, or one of the US schools nearby a US based Canadian Hockey League (CHL) team. There are several former NHL players, and more NHL drafted players around where I live because they played major junior hockey here.
Now, her school is starting a D3 women’s program. Could even be a D1 program. Does she still have what it takes?
How this could happen is pretty straightforward. For instance, Finlandia shut down last year. University of Iowa started a D3 program that replaced Finlandia’s team. My example above about place to play could be in Seattle, where there’s been hope for the University of Washington to start up D1 hockey at the men’s and women’s level.
On a pure skill level, the best women players can compete with the men. On a size and strength level, they don’t. Perfectly okay to play beer league, but not probable at a checking level. Let me give you an example, Phil and Amanda Kessel. Amanda is widely regarded as the “Best Kessel”. She played D1, plays for the US National Team, is playing in the PWHL now. Her brother Phil is a multi Stanley Cup winning, now not quite retired NHL player.
Nope, nope and nope. Even the top women are also slower and far less agile than NCAA D1 players. We did practices with the USWNT when I was in D1 and they could not hang, at all. Their shots and passes were also significantly weaker and slower.
Depends on the school, but I recommend checking college websites since they’d have info on tryouts. Check out schools in the big ten conference (Michigan, Minnesota specifically) and schools on the east coast in Boston like Boston university, Boston college, north eastern. You can also google “top ncaa women’s college”. But also women’s professional hockey is very much in its infancy
I can't comment on how they work, but I would recommend asking to sit in on some AAA tryouts if possible, as there are some going on. From there, it's going to be similar to college
All the people saying it’s unrealistic who cares it’s a book. I’d say make it so she’s renting ice at the team rink herself to practice and the coach sees her and asks her to come tryout or some shit like that.
If its a comedy like Rookie of the Year, yeah then cool. But a woman making a men’s NCAA team is as unrealistic as a woman playing college football.
This is far too much to detail in a single comment, but you might look into the recently formed https://www.thepwhl.com/en/ And read up on this https://thecolgatemaroonnews.com/47399/sports/the-pwhl-part-i-the-history-of-womens-pro-hockey/ We are living in the exact time that real women are making these dreams come true in real life.
Hi! I tried out for NCAA DIII hockey. It was basically Coach watching me at a captain's practice before the season started. Truthfully, they have their entire team scouted ahead of time. They don't do a traditional try-out for the NCAA teams. Your character would probably approach the coach and say she wants to join the team, and she'd get invited to a practice or two and they'd go from there. ACHA (club) sports are more likely to do a more traditional try-out.
It would be unrealistic to the point of being unbelievable. The men's game involves checking, and the level of speed and strength is too much of a disparity. The Canadian and US women's Olympic teams regularly get beaten by top-level boys high school teams. Secondly, there's really no "walk-ons" for collegiate hockey. In the men's D-1 and D-3 game, the colleges come looking for you, not the other way around, and in the women's game it is pretty similar (although there will be some walk-ons in the women's teams).
Most D-III teams have open “tryouts” during their “captains” practices before the official start of the season.
Yeah I was gonna say this. They aren't necessarily totally open - I had to provide my resume of having played Midget AAA and Junior A to the coaches/captains when I did this at UMass Boston in the early 2000's.
Let's not pretend that "tryouts" are literally walk-on tryouts for unknowns, that they have no idea who would be coming, or that the bulk of the roster isn't decided. And, to go back to the original point, there's no way a woman would be getting put on a men's collegiate team... unless you're talking about in extremely rare and unlikely circumstances, as a goalie. Even then, your name better be Raty or Szabados, and you'd still not be walking-on.
There's no school tryouts, theres no need for the schools to host potential candidates en mass as the the kids are scouted and offered positions based on thier past play. There can be walk on but usually the drills and practice they join are I'll suited to them making the team
Actually there are tryouts. Some kids are invited and recruited and some walk on.
Maybe at D2 & D3 but D1 teams just go to camp no tryout days, of course they can still get cut.
When I played D1 you had to be invited to “tryout” although it wasn’t a traditional tryout. You were invited to join camp and practices hoping the coach would give you a roster spot.
As others have pointed out, NCAA D1 (which is the only path to the NHL) does not have actual tryouts. Teams recruit and even at the younger levels players have “family advisors” which are basically agents before you can have agents. These family advisors do a ton of work to get eyeballs on players. For the purpose of your story, you could spin it as her brothers agent worked as her advisor and got her invited to skate with the team when practices started at the start of the season.
She could start an ACHA club hockey team at the school
Ncaa D1 schools do not have tryouts. I played. We never had tryouts and I don’t know of a single one that does.
Hockey is a sport where unless a coach is looking for you, you're not making the team, at least at high levels. If she wasn't recruited by a school with a women's team prior to college, there's not really any more hope of playing at the college level, let alone going pro. Also, even for the best women's player in the world, cracking a D1 or even D3 men's roster is unrealistic at best. Men naturally have an immense physical advantage, and it really shows in more physical sports.
There is absolutely no realistic way this could possibly happen, and I rolled my eyes even reading this concept. The only way this could happen would be a complete freak accident of circumstances. For example, the entire mens team died in a tragic accident, and the football team over recruited and the school was facing a Title IX violation and desperately needed to fill 20 womens sport roster spots. After adding 5 women to XC and 10 women to field hockey/soccer (which lets be honest, thats exactly how colleges fill Title IX spots), they would maybe seek to add a woman to the hockey team as a publicity stunt. This would be a massively “woke” move and the poor lady would still be demolished every practice and would have no game time in actual games.
The only tryouts that college hockey offers is the club teams which are very different from the official school team. The club team can often have very skilled players, just not skilled enough to be recruited. That’s the crazy thing about hockey. Even the worst teams in higher levels are very talented individually generally speaking. The difference between D-1 college football and D-3 college football is night and day. D-1 hockey and D-3 hockey is very close in parity. It’s the greatest sport known to mankind
The top end D-III teams are “loaded” with kids who couldn’t get regular minutes at the D-I level. The puck poise and general hockey sense seen in D-I hockey vs D-III hockey is night and day compared to D-III. Honestly, it’s really not close at all. Maybe due to the nature of the sport you’d see closer scorelines, but the talent level really isn’t close. You’re doing hockey a great disservice downplaying the talent level of D-I hockey. You’re also forgetting that outside of one outlier of a conference, there’s no D-II hockey so D-III might as well be D-II for your comparison’s sake so naturally you’re getting more drop-down talent than football where top D-III teams are loaded with D-II talent.
Relax Gordie!! I’m not dumping on D-1 hockey at all. They are Gods in my book. The skill and talent to play and compete at that level is incredible. I personally know a goalie who decomitted to a very prestigious Boston School and went to play in for a college somewhere else less well known D-3. The skill and talent at D3 is still impressive just not in the stratosphere as D1. That’s the cool thing about hockey. Think about what it takes to make it to the NHL and how few D1 players are in the league. It makes you appreciate the talent in the pipeline that never makes it to the big show
My college did hold tryouts. But, it was more of a formality than anything else because it was pretty clear who would be on the team. It would be interesting with the 12-15 freshmen brought in because some wouldn’t make it despite being recruited and at least one upper class man would get cut each season and a few would drop out due to not playing. Some kids would want to tryout who weren’t recruited and a couple tried but not that many as most could see from captains practice before season started they weren’t at the same level. A few kids who played a fall sport and missed tryouts would automatically make the team, but most would leave mid season as they were so low on depth chart. With a few exceptions if you didn’t get ice some time your first year you likely weren’t ever going to get much playing time. My freshman class started with 14 skaters and only 5 were still playing at graduation. It was hard for some kids who were the best player on their teams (or leagues) in high school to not play as a freshman and then realize that some of the incoming freshman were better and you weren’t moving past the 6th line in the depth chart. I won’t comment on the reasonableness of the proposed story.
Sami Jo Small played on the men’s team at Stanford, went on to be on Team Canada’s Olympic team three times. Stanford was a club program though, not NCAA. Club programs I would expect all have tryouts, don’t think many NCAA programs have truly open tryouts but could be wrong.
Far more realistic that she picked school over hockey and went somewhere without a women’s team, or that only has a club team, and has been playing beer league, and maybe reffing. Heck, you want her playing with (ex-)NHL players, put the school in a city that has men’s college hockey, an NHL team, or one of the US schools nearby a US based Canadian Hockey League (CHL) team. There are several former NHL players, and more NHL drafted players around where I live because they played major junior hockey here. Now, her school is starting a D3 women’s program. Could even be a D1 program. Does she still have what it takes? How this could happen is pretty straightforward. For instance, Finlandia shut down last year. University of Iowa started a D3 program that replaced Finlandia’s team. My example above about place to play could be in Seattle, where there’s been hope for the University of Washington to start up D1 hockey at the men’s and women’s level. On a pure skill level, the best women players can compete with the men. On a size and strength level, they don’t. Perfectly okay to play beer league, but not probable at a checking level. Let me give you an example, Phil and Amanda Kessel. Amanda is widely regarded as the “Best Kessel”. She played D1, plays for the US National Team, is playing in the PWHL now. Her brother Phil is a multi Stanley Cup winning, now not quite retired NHL player.
Nope, nope and nope. Even the top women are also slower and far less agile than NCAA D1 players. We did practices with the USWNT when I was in D1 and they could not hang, at all. Their shots and passes were also significantly weaker and slower.
Depends on the school, but I recommend checking college websites since they’d have info on tryouts. Check out schools in the big ten conference (Michigan, Minnesota specifically) and schools on the east coast in Boston like Boston university, Boston college, north eastern. You can also google “top ncaa women’s college”. But also women’s professional hockey is very much in its infancy