New England Womens Hockey League

History of NEWHL

In 2001, the New England Women’s Hockey League was founded by Kerri Macaluso. The ten founding members had met at a recreational women’s hockey program sponsored by the town of Acton, Massachusetts. One morning each week, while our children were at school, our coach showed us the rudiments of hockey, starting with how to skate. Steadily and gradually we gained confidence and skills. We proudly wore our red-and-black "Hot Shots" hockey jerseys.

Since that first season we have worked hard to build a program that will allow other women the same opportunity. We now offer hockey instruction at different levels: Learn to Play Hockey, Recreational, D, and C level. We are very proud to announce that in the 2006-2007 season, more than eighty women participated in our programs.

From the beginning, we valued a skills-based approach. We have always had superb coaching, by a group of dedicated men and women, each with their own way of motivating players, who have helped us develop our skills over the years. Currently our skills coaches are Paul Ames and Brian Fontas.

In 2003, we ran our first women’s hockey tournament, called April Showers. To us it was a monumental event with four teams participating. Since then it has become an annual tournament, which we have run for six years! In 2007 we had women who came from over 72 cities and towns to participate. The average age of the players in the tournament was 44. We all had fun; there were no losers in that bunch of over 200 women!

Our hockey program is run at Valley Sports Arena in Concord, Massachusetts, the same one that believed in giving us a chance six years ago to start a future for “senior” women’s hockey. We did just that! We are a senior women’s league. “Senior” technically means over eighteen years old, but most of our players are in their thirties, forties, fifties, and we are proud to include a handful of women in their sixties.

In April of 2006, fourteen of the fifteen women who skated in the: FIRST-EVER Women’s Over-50 division at a national tourney, sponsored by USA Hockey/LaBatt Blue, in Tampa, Florida, have skated or are presently skating in the NEWHL program. We are and will continue to make a difference in women’s hockey!

The highlights of our program are the:

Exceptional quality of our skills-based programs at all levels
Exceptional quality of our coaches, who believe in us
Joy of playing the game of ice hockey
Camaraderie, support, mutual respect, and encouragement among the women