MV Thunder girls ready to take the ice

By JEFF OLIVER

MVI Sports

It’s been a long time since an all-girls youth ice hockey team competed in the Mon Valley.

In fact, it has been over 20 years.

That streak will come to an end Saturday morning when the Mon Valley Thunder U-12 girls team plays its season opener in the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League at the Ice Garden in Rostraver Township.

Mon Valley will host Wheeling at the Garden in a 9:50 a.m. contest.

The Thunder play in the Minor Division of the girls league and they will play home games at the Garden on weekends. Saturday’s contest will be the opener of a 20-game season.

Brad Meyers is the coach of the team and says the girls are excited to finally get to enjoy the experience of playing on an all-girls team.

“Most of the girls have played hockey before, but it has been in the Co-Ed Division,” said Meyers. “It was ice hockey, but it was different. Because it was co-ed, the girls dressed in different dressing rooms and they didn’t come together as a team until they hit the ice.

“This will be different. They will all be in the same dressing room, growing relationships and enjoying th team spirit and real experience of girls hockey.”

Meyers, of Latrobe, said that Mon Valley had girls teams in the PAHL, but the last time was “sometime in the 1990s.”

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