Freshman Delaney Howard and junior Evelyn Wright made their mark on the new PIHL Girls Hockey League from the first game, with Howard scoring the first goal in league history and Wright taking the first penalty. 

“I am the first person to get a penalty in this league, and that is something nobody can take away from me,” Wright joked. 

Howard and Wright, along with freshman Maggie Overn, are a part of the first all-girls high school hockey league in Western Pennsylvania.

The girls started playing at young ages. Overn said this will be her seventh year. She, Howard, and Wright all started playing through a program called Little Penguins. From there, the girls joined other club teams, including Shaha, PensElite, and the Steel City Selects. 

Overn was familiar with hockey because her family has a history with Baldwin High School hockey.

“My grandpa played here when they first won the Penguins Cup for Baldwin, and my great-grandpa coached the team,” Overn said. 

Howard began playing when she was 6 years old, and Wright started when she was 3. They both saw hockey players at Penguins games and local ice rinks, and their passion sprouted from there. 

Howard and Overn have recently played on all-girls teams. However, Wright has not played on an all-girls team in years, and she said she enjoys the new company. 

“I much prefer it because there is a certain level of fear playing with boys because of the physical differences, and a lot more boys tend to be aggressive, while girls are a lot less likely to do that,” Wright said. 

Overn and Howard agreed with Wright, saying it is more enjoyable to compete with people who treat them as equals. 

“I think that the boys don’t pass to you because you’re a girl,” Howard said.  

Wright also has faced some boys who have made remarks to her while playing because she is a girl, which she said made her feel bad and even consider quitting. However, she did not let that stop her.

The team plays at three rinks – Alpha, RMU, and Ice Castle – and Wright said the atmosphere is fun.

“It’s hardcore, and there are announcers, which are pretty cool. It makes it feel professional,” Wright said. 

The girls agreed that the teams are evenly divided skill-wise, which intensifies the competition. 

Overn said this league is challenging because “when you play with boys, there’s a wider range of skill.”

Joe Cummings, a Level 5 coach with USA Hockey and the youth hockey coordinator at Robert Morris University’s Island Sports Center, coaches the team. He has been coaching all-girls teams for the last six years, but he has coached boys teams in the past too. 

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Although he treats and coaches boys and girls the same, he said there generally are noticeable differences.

“The girls that I have coached seem to pay attention better and are more concerned with the technical side of the game, whereas the boys are more about the physical side,” Cummings said. 

The league was set to debut in 2020 as a four-team league, but was postponed due to the pandemic. By the time the league was ready to start this year, there were enough girls interested for six teams.

The teams are divided according to where the girls live. All three of the Baldwin girls play for a team called Central along with girls from Thomas Jefferson, Hampton, and Avonworth, among others. All the girls wear a patch on their shoulder representing their school.

Central has a record of 1-2, and the girls hope to be playing in the playoffs in June.

¨It’s just exciting to play with new girls and meet new people,¨ Howard said.