Northern Michigan Is Getting Its First Girls Varsity High School Hockey Program

Growing up in northern Michigan, Taylor Lundberg remembers the moment she realized she was going to have to leave the area to pursue what she loved most. A standout hockey player from a young age, Lundberg found herself running into an unavoidable truth: the Grand Traverse Area didn’t have a high school girls hockey team suited to a player of her caliber or ambition.

“I had to make a choice,” Lundberg recalls. “I wanted to get better and develop and be seen by colleges, because I wanted to play college hockey. And I had to leave. There just there wasn't a high-level team here.”

Now, Lundberg (pictured, right) gets to be part of the solution to that problem. The former hockey star has been tapped to coach the new girls Bay Reps hockey program, a collective of seven high schools that, this coming season, will field northern Michigan’s first-ever girls varsity high school hockey team.

Back in her own high school days, Lundberg’s search for high-level playing opportunities led her to try out for AAA hockey teams downstate, ultimately landing her with the Lansing Spartans. (The Spartans are a 19-and-under team based in East Lansing.) Then, after graduating high school in 2017, Lundberg got her wish of playing college hockey, spending her freshman year at a small college in Maine before transferring to University of Michigan to don the maize and blue as part of the school’s club hockey program. A forward, she was soon leading the Wolverines in goals.

If returning to the Mitten to play college hockey was one dream come true for Lundberg, though, getting to come back to Traverse City to rewrite the area’s story around girls hockey might be an even sweeter one.

The name “Bay Reps” should be familiar to local hockey aficionados. There is already a Bay Reps program for boys hockey, and for years, that cooperative program has pooled hockey talent from eight schools in the region – Traverse City St. Francis, Charlevoix, Elk Rapids, Kalkaska, Frankfort, Lake City, Suttons Bay, and Traverse City Christian. The program uses funding from families and sponsors “to provide our youth team the opportunity to play competitive hockey throughout Michigan with an emphasis on good sportsmanship and teamwork.”

The new Bay Reps program for girls has a slightly different configuration of schools, including TC Central, TC West, St. Francis, Cadillac, Elk Rapids, Kalkaska, and Mancelona. The goal, though, is similar: Offering more opportunities to a broader range of student-athletes from throughout northern Michigan.

“I just think it’s awesome that we're giving these girls a place to play competitive hockey here,” Lundberg tells The Ticker, noting that women’s hockey – both locally and nationwide – “has really expanded in the past several seasons.” According to USA Hockey, for instance, girls hockey programs throughout the United States have seen an overall participation increase by 65 percent “over the past 15 seasons.” Lundberg hopes the Bay Reps team, by being part of that growth, will mean local players can play competitively, improve their skills, and catch the eye of college coaches all from a home base in northern Michigan.

“I think we have historically sent away a lot of talent,” Lundberg says. “There’s way more girls hockey talent here than people think, because a lot of these girls have been leaving and going to play in Grand Rapids, or Detroit, or Lansing. They’re out playing on really good teams and doing really cool things elsewhere, but they don’t show up as players representing northern Michigan. So, I’m excited for the Bay Reps, because I know the talent is here; we just need to keep it here, and I think we can do that if we give these girls an opportunity to use it.”

Lundberg moved back to northern Michigan during the pandemic, eventually joining up with a few adult hockey leagues to make local connections and keep her skills sharp. It was through those leagues that she not only caught the chatter about a new Bay Reps program for girls, but also discovered just how much passion there is for women’s hockey in the region. One league in town, she notes, has women from their 20s to the 70s getting out on the ice together. And while some of the women in that league are beginners just cutting their teeth, others are long-time hockey veterans whose stories underline just how long something like a varsity girls hockey team has been an unspoken need in northern Michigan.

“I’ve had conversations about the new program with all these women in their 40s, and so many of them have said, ‘Oh my gosh, back when I was in high school I would have killed to have a girls ice hockey team.’ People have been waiting for this for 25 years, if not longer. There's no doubt northern Michigan has been a little behind on this one. But we know there is interest now, and I think girls are seeing, ‘Hey, we can do this too.’”

The Bay Reps’ season schedule is set to run from November through the end of February, kicking off with a scrimmage against Midland next Saturday, November 4, at Centre Ice Arena. Tryouts for the team, also at Centre Ice, will take place this coming week, starting on Tuesday, October 31 from 5:30-6:30pm and continuing on Wednesday, November 1 (8:10-9:10pm) and Thursday, November 2 (8:40-9:40pm). Tryouts are open to all female high school students at the seven participating schools.