As the chilly fall weather quickly turns into brutal winter days, the girls’ hockey team begins to ramp up into their 2022-2023 season. With the start of the season comes the usual tryouts and scrimmages, but this year, there is one difference: BGH is merging with Minnehaha and Providence. Last season, BGH only had one large varsity team. This year, the team is led by five Blake senior captains: Remy Abraham ‘23, Suzy Higuchi ‘23, Jackie Wethington ‘23, Ellie Morrison ‘23, and Sam Broz ‘23.
Abraham explains the new system, saying that “the past few years, we haven’t had a JV team, and this year we had the opportunity to merge with those two teams and create a bigger pool of girls so that we’re able to have a JV team.” The union of all three schools opens up many doors to new connections and a larger hockey community.
Higuchi describes the new dynamics of the merging, noting, “I think it’s been a really smooth transition into it, I think mostly because all the returning players have been really good at being accepting and welcoming to the new girls and I also think that the new girls who have joined us have been really outgoing and they’re challenging themselves to get to know us more, so I think the team dynamic is really good.”
The separation of a single team into a varsity team and a JV team this year, brings many benefits to the girls’ hockey team. Abraham continues, “having a JV team that will be able to support you and come to your games will definitely be nice and just having more people in the locker room and a part of the program makes it a lot better.” Higuchi remarks that there is a very large senior class on the team – there will be 12 senior players leaving the program this year. Because of this impending absence, Higuchi states that “it’s a lot more fun and really cool getting to know so many new people, especially the younger girls because we haven’t really had that experience in the recent years.”
As Abraham and Higuchi embark on their last season with BGH, they hope to continue a positive legacy for all the players and the program. Abraham elaborates, “We just want to keep it a positive space and inspire the other kids because we’re all leaving next year but they’ll do great things.”
