In an effort to raise the bar for female players heading into a new venture this fall, Hockey Edmonton turned to the University of Alberta Pandas women’s team for support.

The Pandas know a thing or two about winning.

The partnership is geared to aid in developing female players in the city and will be focused on the Bantam and Midget elite programs redefined by Hockey Alberta for the upcoming season.

“There are going to be six Midget AAA teams in the province and 12 Midget elite teams and 12 Bantam elite teams,” said Hockey Edmonton executive director Dean Hengel. “Edmonton is one of the six franchises that was offered a Midget AAA program and one of the heavy emphasis was on player skill development and their technical developments, as well as developing coaching staffs and technical staffs.

“We had an opportunity of building a Centre of Excellence by tapping into the resources of the Pandas hockey program and the programs being offered by the Athletics department in the Faculty of Physical Recreation and Education with respect to their Green and Gold sports programs.”

The Pandas hockey program was created in 1997 and is the most successful Canadian University team in the country, winning a record seven national championships.

The Pandas and coach Howie Draper have been pioneers in the development of female hockey in the country and were very willing to share their expertise with the local team competing in the new provincial league.

“This is something that is being driven by our faculty with the idea of playing a major role in helping young people develop in various sports that we have available at the U of A,” Draper said. “What helped contribute to this combustion (partnership) was that in female hockey, our Midget AAA level throughout Alberta had either flatlined or in some cases, it had decreased.

“The skill level of the players wasn’t quite where Hockey Alberta felt it could be. There were a number of players moving out of the Midget AAA system and into hockey academies all over Western Canada and spending huge amounts of money, upwards of $30,000, to attend these sport academies and there was maybe a feeling that they weren’t quite getting out if it what they hoped they would get out of it.”

The Edmonton Female Athletic Club will represent the city in the newly formed leagues. The Midget AAA team will be coached by Darwin Bozek. They are holding a spring identification camp this weekend at the Clare Drake Arena.

The Midget AAA league will also feature teams in Calgary, Lloydminster, Okotoks, Red Deer and St. Albert.

“We all feel very strongly about working together to help these young female athletes develop into, hopefully, stronger athletes down the road,” Draper said. “We want to help them achieve their dreams.”

Ultimately, Draper believes the Pandas involvement with Hockey Edmonton will benefit his program at the U of A. The goal, however, is to increase the talent pool and provide opportunities for female players to play at the highest level.

“We want to ensure the players that play hockey have the best opportunity to reach whatever goals they may have in the sport,” Draper said. “We would love to be able to say we’ll have anywhere between 5-10 girls in the U-18 provincial program playing for Team Alberta. We would love to be able to say, coming out of this program, we’ll have a few national team members down the road. That in of itself would be the greatest reward for all of us involved.”

The Midget Elite league will be made up of teams in Edmonton, two from Calgary, Airdrie, Grande Prairie, Leduc, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, Okotoks, Red Deer, Sherwood Park and St. Albert. The Bantam league will have a similar makeup.

“At Midget AAA this year for the first time in Alberta, it’s a full open-boundary environment, there are no residential restrictions as to where a player can play,” Hengel said. “With full mobility, girls can start with an organization of their choosing which best fits their needs and their philosophies.”

Hengel believes having the Pandas on their side gives the elite female programs in Edmonton a competitive advantage.

“For 20 years, they have been the leading program in Canada,” Hengel said. “The recognition Howie has as a coach provincially and nationally, and even internationally, that’s a resource that we would be absolutely foolish not to partner with. This new female elite hockey model provided us with an opportunity to sit down and see what we could do differently that would benefit our athletes and our coaches, and not just at the elite level but at all levels of female hockey in Edmonton.”

Dvandiest@postmedia.com

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