There’s a new girls varsity ice hockey team in town. Well, not in our town, exactly. In Mamaroneck. But nine players from Rye – seven who go to Rye High School and two who attend Rye Neck – are on the squad. And their families are soooo glad they no longer have to commute to Brewster in the predawn hours for practice.
The team is called the East Green Wave, and it boasts a combined roster of players from the Sound Shore region as well as Scarsdale, Ardsley, and Bronxville. These girls grew up playing for coed travel teams like the Rye Rangers, but most chose not to keep playing against bigger, stronger boys once in high school, where “checking,” or blocking, is allowed.
Although this was the East Green Wave’s first season, a team with the same name and some of the same players had been based in Scarsdale for several previous seasons. That team’s former coach, Stacey Wierl, explained the two groups’ overlapping histories and transformation this way:
“I was a teacher in the Scarsdale district,” she said, “and I saw that hockey-playing girls [in Westchester County] had nowhere local to go to keep playing a game they loved in high school. Unlike some places upstate, no Section 1 schools [those in Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties] had enough players to suit up a team.
“So we petitioned BOCES [the state Board of Cooperative Educational Services] to create a combined squad from the area, and they allowed us to form a ‘club’ team – the East Green Wave – in 2017,” Wierl continued. “We played at the club level for two years before we were upgraded to varsity, which meant we could schedule other varsity teams – in upstate New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.”
At about the same time, another girls varsity team, the Rockland Rockies, was organized just across the Hudson River. “We played them several times a year,” Wierl said, “with the winner earning the title of ‘Section Champion.’ ”
“But ice time is hard to get all over Westchester,” she added. “We had to practice in the Brewster Ice Arena, often at 6 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, so girls from Pelham and New Rochelle right up through Rye and Blind Brook had to rise before 5 to make it on time. Most of the girls weren’t old enough to drive, so the parents had to be really dedicated for their kids to play.”
With the approach of the 2023-24 season, however, the number of female hockey players in the county had grown to the point that a decision was made to split Westchester in two and form a new team based south of Interstate 287 – with ice time at Hommocks Park Rink in Larchmont. The original East Green Wave was renamed the North Avalanche and is now based north of I-287.
“Even though it was still often at six in the morning, it wasn’t asking as much of families,” Wierl said of the shorter drive to practice in nearby Mamaroneck. “The team is run by administrators and coaches from the Mamaroneck School District, but it welcomes high school girls from many schools south of … 287.”
Throw in the Rockland Rockies, and the four-county Section 1 interscholastic sports region now has three girls varsity ice hockey programs.
Wierl took over the North Avalanche, so a new head coach, Raquel “Rocky” Lividini-Gilbert, joined the Mamaroneck High-based squad. Unfortunately for her new charges, Lividini-Gilbert was delayed in organizing hockey practice last fall because she was still helping coach the Tigers’ field hockey team to a state championship.
“We returned on a Sunday, and I started coaching on the ice the next day,” she said.
Despite the late start, the south Westchester team held its own in its inaugural season, beating the Rockland girls three consecutive times before facing them again earlier this month in Section 1’s first girls hockey semifinals. Despite outshooting the Rockies 36-8 in their fourth meeting, the Wave’s season came to an end with a 3-2 loss.
Without a single senior on its roster, the East Green Wave should be able to build on this year’s experience. “We can clear the puck from our own zone,” one player noted, “but we need more time in practice with building goals.”
The East Green Wave teammates from Rye High School are: ninth-grader Selkie Brown, junior Molly Budke, ninth-grader Mia Lynch, ninth-grader Cece Neise, sophomore Abby Robertson, sophomore Hayden Souza and ninth-grader Katie Weldinger. Ninth-grader Elle Barker and junior co-captain Ayla Felenstein represent Rye Neck.
