Hal High Hawkey - girls home opener this week

Marsden steps into coaching fray - Twin hats for Coach Griffith

Home opener Thursday, Dec. 2, at 3 pm

By terrance Gavan - Editor Sports

For the past several years girls at Hal High have played on an ad hoc Red Hawk hockey team.

   Go ahead and spit that alliterative howdy-do three times real fast.

   Tongue twisters aside – okay, she shoots she scores; had to be said – Hal High’s new principal Dan Marsden felt it was time to address an inconsistency.

   Coach Bruce Griffith – who has coached the fledgling girls club hockey team over several seasons - and Marsden took a long look at the six-year history of the club and decided to take the ad hoc out of Red Hawk this season.

   And so this year, for the first time since Cindy Mitchell first envisioned girls playing hockey in 2004-05, the squad is now officially entrenched as a full-fledged entity.

   They will now compete as members of the 11 team Kawartha League.

   The girls were supposed to play their first game of the season last Monday in Peterborough, but some unexpected activity shut that road trip down.

   “We were supposed to head to Peterborough to play Holy Cross, but that was cancelled due to a gas leak which closed down the roads in the area,” says Griffith. “Actually it worked out well for us because we haven’t had a practice with the full team yet, and this will give us some time to get a bit more organized. We’ve got practices scheduled for Tuesday this week and another one on Friday.

   Their next game is actually their home opener, slated for Thursday, Dec 2 at 3 pm.

   Griffith is probably the busiest man in Haliburton right now.

   He coached junior football in the fall, and now slides into a full slate of coaching duties with both girls and boys hockey teams.

   Marsden seems primed and ready to step into his new spot as coach of the Red Hawk girls shinny squad.

   Funnily enough, several players from the Red Hawks varsity field hockey squad will be donning skates to compete in this first season of competitive high school hockey.

   On Dec 13 the girls travel to Norwood and on Dec 15 they will be in Petawawa for a full day tourney.

   Make a note of that home-opening date.

   Thursday, Dec 1 at the Dysart Arena. It’s at 3 pm.

   See you there.

   Tips? gav@pardontheeruption.com