How the NIHL Built One of the Largest Girls Hockey Leagues in America with Bob Apter

Hello, hockey friends and families around the world and welcome to another episode of

Our Girls Play Hockey. I'm Lee Elias, joined by Hayley Scamurra. And today we're

welcoming back a friend of the show, Bob Apter, president of the Northern Illinois

Hockey League, the NIH. When Bob joined us in June of 2024, the NIHL was already

the largest youth hockey league in the Midwest. It's a good league to talk about

when we're discussing ideas. And this season, speaking of ideas, they're making

history again, expanding to one of the nation's largest girls travel hockey league

with 75 teams across five states. That is a massive league.

The NHL's legacy, excuse me, of players includes alumni, like some names you know,

Cammi Grinato, Kendall Coyne -Schofield, and Abby Murphy, just to name a few, there's

many of them, all of whom have helped shape women's hockey at the highest levels.

With the NIHL's new focus on growing the girls game, thousands of players across the

mid -West, excuse me, are getting new opportunities to compete, develop, and fall in

love with the sport of hockey. Today we're going to explore what's driving this

growth, how the NIHL built one of the largest girls leagues in North America, and

what lessons we can

10, 15, 20 teams, you've gone all the way. What inspired the NHL to go all in on

girls hockey? And let me ask you this. What challenges are you trying to solve? And

how do you define success with this as it grows? That's a good question. So I

guess I'll start with the beginning. We had a girls director about 20 years ago

who's still with us. Ruben Medina is his name. And he's daughter played. And there

was no leagues around the Midwest at all back then all the girls just played boys

so there was one little core group of i guess you'd call them tier tier three

house which doesn't exist for girls anymore but they played in a little local league

and we decided that we would start a girl session so we got the teams together we

already had several boys teams and a division if we couldn't field five teams in a

division, the division didn't go. So it was a struggle the first several years. So

we started branching out. Girls grew a little bit in Illinois. It got bigger.

Indiana, some of the Wisconsin states saw that we had a league where they could

compete. So they started joining. We then decided about 10 years later that we could

expand it because in truth and honesty, the Illinois governing body except for the

girls committee really doesn't care Thank you.

you would have an upper and a lower, you would play fewer teams in the course of

your season, but every game, the goal would be to have it a one or two goal game.

So as that progressed, teams from now Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, several in St.

Louis, all decided that they don't have any competitive games. They're always

traveling and doing showcases to find games in tournaments, and they can never find

one they can put in a tournament and then they find out that they win every game

by seven eight goals or they lose every game and it was a waste of time and money

so we started to get them calling and what we do did back then is we would set

up a game so if when originally quad cities called we set up games they told us

about how good they were we knew from the boys level about how competitive it would

be with the team. We set them up to play a couple games with girls' teams that we

thought would be parity for them in our league. And then they liked the experience,

the games were closed, so the next year they joined. As more and more grew, we now

have three levels at most age levels. So we have, we're going to have to rename

them because you started calling them National and American just because we didn't

have names for him. And National has gotten very confusing with the national

tournament.

So now we're going to have a naming contest at the end of the year with the

girls' clubs to rename the leagues. So the top level has much more confined than a

shorter number of teams. We try and keep that between six and eight teams. So every

game's competitive. Plus, if you want to get that large bid for girls nationals you

need to prove that you play the tough schedule so if we let weaker teams in at

that level then they don't get the strength of points they need to go to regionals

so teams wouldn't enter at the high level because they wanted that once we started

doing that two years ago teams will teams from ever working we we have teams from

fox motors triple AAA in Michigan is in that league. Badger City out of Wisconsin

is in that level. The Illinois teams all came back and that league is great. We

keep it at six or eight. We actually have several girls from the Little Caesar's

League calling now about next year. So once we got that,

we then started having, at the lower level, we had between 14 and 17 teams at most

age groups except for 10 -year -olds. So we decided that the goal is still to keep

the games competitive. So we decided to break it into two tiers. The lower levels

broken in two tiers, tier one and tier two. After they play six or eight games,

then we decide where to move them. And this year, actually, we did move one of the

teams from the American level at 14. You went to the national level because they

were blowing everybody out and it was more competitive. So we just did that last

week. And so the new schedules will come out by Thursday this week. So the more

competitive nature you get, the more teams are coming from other states.

So now we had a meeting last night as we did the rescheduling. And our girls

coordinator, Rubin, He has now set up at least, I will call them showcase weekends

now, where teams that are interested in joining the league next year, they tell us

who they've played and where they think they fit. And we call our teams and we

say, hey, this is the weekend they want to travel to Illinois. How many of you can

play them? And it's not just at the top level. We actually have a showcase at the

14 U level at the third level from a team from Iowa that is just starting out and

they considered themselves very low end and they wanted to see how they would

compete against their lower end because they can't get games in their area unless

they want to play a boys team. So that's how it's morphed in the 75, which based

on phone calls and stuff, I would assume it'll be well over 100 within two years.

Wow. That is a crazy amount of hockey teams, a crazy amount of games and a

and why this is necessary. So go ahead, Ailey. Yeah, so, I mean, it just sounds

like, how did you manage all the logistics of creating all of these, like, teams

and the divisions and the scheduling and the travel and also keeping that experience

affordable for, like, the family? We have an infrastructure set in place from the

boys that we just put into the girls. And basically, when teams come from the out

-of -state, They have to, it's called the Peoria role. And either they have to play

their home games in the rink of the Illinois team, which the Illinois team will

then pay for all the ice and the refs. So it cuts the travel cost down. Or the

Illinois team will travel and play all their games there. But the Illinois team has

their choice. So the plus for the Illinois team was they didn't have to do the

travel if they didn't want to. Like, a lot of them go to St. Louis now because we

have three teams from the area, so they'll play them all. But in the beginning,

when we didn't, they would Peoria rule them, and they would play all their games at

home. And the cost for the travel team from, like, Michigan or Iowa would come.

They still had to pay for hotels like they were going to a tournament, but the

games essentially were free so that cut their cost of what they were originally

doing significantly. So it kind of was a win -win for both. But now the more we

expand with Fox Motors and now Grand Rapids has been talking to us, if we get two

or three in that area, then I'm sure the teams will travel there and the Peoria

rule will go away at that moment.

Makes sense. Yeah, that sounds like a lot Makes a lot of sense. So then how do

you do, like, how do you raise the standards for girls' coaches? I find that that's

kind of like a tough avenue that people face in terms of like the coaching level

for girls hockey. Is their training, mentorship, certification so that these players

are getting good coaching? Well, they go through the same process as the boys in

Illinois. I'm not sure about other states. but the most clubs as they've grown with

their girls portion have instituted a separate hockey director like they do with the

boys for girls and he supersedes or oversees all the girls coaches I mean there are

still some clubs that have mom and dad just like the boys do and there are some

that have hired coaches and the ones that half -hired coaches tend to go on better.

I mean, I like to say there are dad coaches and there are coaches that are dads,

right? Because, like, I coached 18 -U hockey long before I had kids.

And then I had kids and I quit to coach them. So I wouldn't consider it a dad

coach. But I would say the girls more and more started with dad coach.

And now I think it's morphed into coaches separate from dads and even coaches that

are dads are not dad coaches.

It's an interesting place to explore because as the need grows, you know, the

education will expand to. You know, we were talking in the pre -show a little bit

about, you know, Haley's in the PWHL and she's on Team USA. And when women's hockey

is growing, the PWHL has just expanded. So there's going to be a need for more

girls' programs as the game expands. And, you know, one feeds each other. In the

intro, we mentioned some pretty powerful names. Cameron Granato, I mean, Kendall Coyne

-Chofeld. I mean, these are big names in their alumnus of the league, right, of the

area. Yeah. How do you plan to use those for alumni engagement? You know, are you

looking to do college partnerships, or even anything up to the PWHL level as it

continues to grow. It's funny you say all that. Well, for starters, if you go on

our website, we've actually, one of the reasons we have a PR firm is to connect

with people that have played in the league, right? So it started with Tage Thompson.

He played in the league. He did a tutorial. He's on our website, a whole thing.

Then as we got a few of the boys, we morphed into the girls. And Cameron Granato

actually has an excellent testimonial about girls hockey growing up on our website.

And then Abby Murphy just did one. I don't remember how many there are, but there's

four or five now girls testimonials about how growing up in Nihil helped shape them.

The second thing is the PWHL, I have reached out to our, we have a sponsorship,

the whole league with the Blackhawks. We've had it for years.

We still do stuff with the wolves. Everything is great, but we do do stuff with

them. So Annie Cannon is now with the PHL. I have, I made contact with her right

after I started permission. We are actually working on a few things. And I have

talked to a few others that are working on stuff with the PWHL. I'm not a liberty

to say right now, but I can't say by December, our girls will have something to do

with a PHL game. That's awesome. Haley, I do want to ask, I'm going to jump in

real quick with one question for you. So you're a PWHL athlete, right? So look,

the women's professional women's Olympic level ability to give back is so well known.

I mean, every person I've ever spoken to at your level is so dedicated to giving

back. But in this kind of conversation, you're hearing about the size of these

leagues. I'm interested as a professional hockey player, how this inspires you or

what this makes you think about beyond just playing, right? Because the need to do

these things is expanding from your end too, right? So what are your thoughts on

just the expansion of a league like this and seeing that, you know, you're hearing

75 I mean, that's, that's 20 years ago unheard of, 10 years ago unheard of, right?

So true. It's incredible to hear. And I think it just shows how important,

like, our league and the national teams and the Raveler Series games, like all of

these have been in developing the grassroots level. Because now more girls want to

play hockey. And I think it all starts with having a great foundation that girls

want that girls want to play in the league because trust me, they're looking for,

you know, reasons to maybe not play. Like, and if you have like that good

foundation for them to play in where they feel safe, where it's affordable, where

it's fun, all those things play into it that allows them to want to continue

playing to the next level, you know, to AAA, to NCAA, to NCAA to national programs.

So the work you're doing is incredibly important. and it's incredible to see that

there's that many teams involved. Like, the difference is not even describable.

Like, I can't even imagine that when I was younger. Like, there was never that many

teams. I mean, in the testimonial with Cammy, I remember mentioning on there how she

couldn't even play on a girl's team because there wasn't numbers. So she played on

a boys team at Savers all growing up. Yeah, and Cammy's always, I always love

talking about her because she was really the first female hockey player that I ever

really saw in 1998 in the Olympics and really inspired an entire generation of

female hockey players. The other thing, too, just when we think about this, and

again, I did say pro, Haley, you said it correctly, like the NCAA, ACHA, like these

teams all play into this as well. You're going to see the expansion. And what's

cool for the audience listening, you know, we're talking about these girls leagues,

five years, 10 years. I mean, you can look at it really short term. I mean, it's

a massive influx of players into the system, right? And it just shows that the,

and I like to say this, that the growth of women's hockey, I mean, you could

actually say this about women's sports right now. It's not like a flash in the pan

thing like this is this is really happening really fast um i i think in the past

you could see the rumblings like the early rumblings of that but this is real and

it's so cool to see um not and again we said it's not just for for young girls

but young boys too to see that the game is growing in this way anyway haley i

know you have another question i just wanted to ask that because you know a lot of

these conversations are reciprocal they go both ways up and down. And I love seeing

them support each other.

Totally. So for families, you know, they have their kids in these travel leagues,

but then they're kind of thinking like next steps. There's high school, AAA, NCAA,

NCAA national programs. Does the NIH, like, help guide their players to the right

opportunities for them without them feeling, like, overwhelmed about the decisions?

No, we don't, we have not yet gotten involved in those decisions. It has,

it is something we talk.

include the lower levels. So the lower levels, the American level, will have their

own set of All -Star games at 14, 16, and 19. So they will get some exposure

because just because your team isn't one of the top doesn't mean there's not a top

player on that team. I got to ask this too now, Haley, how many All -Girl All -Star

games have you seen growing up? None. Right. Only for the boys. We're supposed to

five this year. Well, there you can see. I'm bringing

One other jawbreaking idea that we came up with that I'm sure you two are going to

love is we decided when the whole thing went down and we're losing the boys.

We needed to rebrand a little bit. I mean, obviously, Northern Illinois has been a

hockey league's been around 56 years, but people don't think of it as girls. So we

came up with Midwest Superior Girls hockey. It's not a league, as it would say in

my hockey rankings. It's not a league. It's still the Northern Illinois Hockey

League, but the divisions are now Midwest Superior Girls Hockey. So we decided that

instead of trophies and hats when you win the championship,

like they give out everywhere, we are now giving out charm bracelets. That's cool.

With the charm for first place and second place in the new created joint logo with

Nihil and Midwest Superior Girls Hockey, engraved in the back, the year of the

level, and what place you found. So we changed the whole trophies and stuff that

you give out. So instead of putting it in a drawer and never looking at that

again. Now, if a girl starts at age 10 and she second place, and then by age 12,

she's in, when's the first place, She could have six or seven charm bracelets that

she's show Northern Illinois Hockey League and accomplishments, and it might foster

into staying in longer and playing longer. No, I love outside the box thinking,

right? I think that with hockey, when things get too formulaic, it's not the best

thing in the world. Look, I've said this, but we won't dive into this. The PWHL

draft, the way they do the draft with, once you're out of the plus.

years ago they went into triple overtime because both overtimes ended one to one.

They were only three minutes long. Yeah. And every kid got to play and everybody

was loving it. So there's your outside the box thinking. I always coming up with

crazy ideas. Now, if they wanted to play a goalie, could they? Or is it they have

to do six games? There you go. There you go there. I would love to hear. I think

some goalers would love that. Some golies would be like, I want the That's

interesting. That's what it was, too. No, listen, I love that. I saw my, just last

story for me, we were at a tournament where it went, overtime was three on three,

I'm sorry, started four on four, three on three on three. And I saw my first two

on two ever overtime game, which was just madness. Didn't make any sense.

I was like, this is not hockey. But it's, they have to finish the game somehow.

Yeah. So that's pretty cool. So, Bob, here's another question for me. A lot of

teams. A lot of teams require a lot of ice time. A lot of ice time might mean

that there's less availability to play, right? So how are you making the game more

accessible? Is it through cost reduction, shared ice? Do you make partnerships? Like,

how does that aspect of this work? Because, again, I think we have to reestablish

reestablisher. Not every place in America has as much ice as where you're from or

where I'm from, right? So this is a real challenge when you got to make it work.

How do you make the game more accessible?

Well, for starters, the teams get their own ice in Illinois. So we really don't

have much to do with it, which is why the concept came off the Peoria rule to

begin with is so that cities and towns that don't have a lot of ice can always

play here and the cost doesn't drive up for them. As far as the Illinois teams go,

I won't say they're used to high cost because I think we should always drive the

cost down. They are used to higher costs and we do have sponsorship for several

years. It was with the wolves for the last five or six. And The last two years,

the Blackhawks, not only did they sponsor us, but they donated the United Center. So

of our six championship games, one was girls every year. They were at the United

Center. They had Gene Honda, the real Blackhawks announcer. He did the speaker.

They had the real game day experience. The three stars of the game, which we

incorporated years ago when we got the Blackhawk deal, the same people that do it

for the Blackhawks and introduce the three stars afterwards in

model like other people get ideas from these episodes of what's possible right right

especially in natural cities and again i've been up there recently the black hawks

are expanding their practice facility to two to four rinks which is going to create

even more ice time which is where all our playoffs are going to be this year there

you go right state of the yard training facility up there at the fifth third's

arena which is very close to the united center um so So it's amazing.

It's it's amazing what happens when people can really work together here and do it

the right way. That, you know, this game can be played, right? There doesn't have

to be the limitations we create. Sometimes you've got to think outside the box or

think a little bigger than the microscopic way of doing it. But go ahead, Haley, my

bet. No, I was just going to add that I just love that the girls are getting the

same opportunities as the boys. It just shows that they're in the equal playing

field, the parody's there. I think that just sends a beautiful message to the boys

and girls that are all playing hockey there together in the same program. And I

just commend you for that, truly, because it's not seen across the country. And, you

know, I hear too many stories about girls having to, you know, use dirty jerseys or

use old equipment or bad ice times, like just things like that. So to hear that,

like, the girls are getting treated like the boys and it's equal, like, that's huge.

It's funny you mention that because the very first year we had the championships at

the United Center, the boys get like a Stanley Cup trophy for the very top level,

right? And Nihil for years ran about eight different boys' levels. And the very top

one got the trophy that they got to put it in their case. So the very first year

we had at the United Center would sit in the penalty box and the team that won it

got to hoisted. and so we noticed that we didn't have

up even when you're still younger as a girl there's a lot of boys saying stay on

the boys team at least till 13 don't come play on the girls only team stay on the

boys team so we we want to make it so the experience is the same so if she wants

to go play with her friends she's not missing out on anything

yep I totally agree with that it's the social aspect it's super important right and

something that shouldn't be overlooked absolutely um my next question for you which

is kind of like what metrics that you look at like throughout the season to then

like improve on it next year is it retention participation like the competitive

balance like what's like the most important metric that you kind of look at the

first one is competitive balance we make sure that we we sit in the room like we

sat in a room for a long time yesterday make sure we're looking at every fact and

if I, like, we have an oddball game where one of our 14 -year American one,

which is the second level, they've had every game was competitive, and one game they

just got absolutely blown out. So I called the hockey director. I'm like, can you

tell me what happened here? So, and he's like, well, we were missing three girls

and we couldn't reschedule the game because there's so many double rostered with

other teams. So we kind of threw that game out. So we try and take a look and we

take notes and make sure that the competitive balance what we're doing is right so

we don't because obviously 75 teams we're going to make a mistake on three or four

of them while we receive them but the goal is to make that number as low as

possible so we check every metric we use to make sure that if one is wrong

consistently we're changing it because and and it's it's worked the the retention

rate of girls in Illinois is very high compared to other states. Whereas the

retention rate of boys in Illinois, where they don't have that now with these other

leagues in the 22 -0 score. I read last week from Tofer Scott, something he showed

me, that it's actually the lowest of all 50 states at boys. So it's actually almost

a full inverse flip to show that competitive balance is an important thing to keep

these kids come back is like Lee keeps mentioning the cost if you're paying five or

six grand a year to play hockey in Illinois whether you're a boy or a girl and

your mom's and dad are looking and going geez you touched the puck three times

because you lost every game 15 or nothing I'll find something else to pay that kind

of money for so we we want to make it so every experience is good and they want

to come back and they don't say, well, I can find other things to do. Yeah, look,

I'll say this, too.

Just talking about it from the business side of hockey, because like I said, we do

ourselves no favor if we don't, right? This is a good business to be in right now.

Like, if you talk about it, this is a growing aspect of the game, right? Probably

one of the most rapidly growing aspects of any sport right now would be girls

hockey would be my belief all right so for those you out there that maybe are

looking to grow a girls program i i think 10 years ago possibly a risk i could

see that as a business risk i'm just being blunt right it's not anymore it's not

anymore like this is a good place to be i know my daughter plays in a in a uh

for a girls team and they play in two different leagues one of them is all girls

i mean it's growing all the time and there's there's always people trying to get

them out this is a 10 you team i'm talking about right so so i just think it's

important that we share these ideas we share what you're doing bob we share the the

aspect of i should have said nihil in the open that would have been a lot easier

to say than nihl 12 times no worries i'm going to say it again in closing man i

commend you what you're doing i love that you're growing the game you know i think

that um the speed at with girls and women's hockey has grown the man's aspects like

this and action like this, and you're taking it, man. So I appreciate that. Right.

I appreciate it. Thanks. I will say, like you said about, you know, the business

end of it. Yeah. In complete honesty, when we started years ago, if we had 400

teams in Nihil and 30 of more girls' teams, the amount of parental complaints were

10 to 1 girls' parents versus boys' parents because there were so few they've like,

you need us rather than the league you know, in order to survive if a bunch of us

leave. So nobody wanted to take on starting a girls program because the complaint

level was so high compared to the boys. But I will say now that there's so many

girls teams and it's so competitive. We have an R &E committee for the last whatever

years. The amount of girls complaints we got are almost zero. Yeah.

You know, I'll say this too. And Haley, it's your perspective I actually really want

on this too. We talked about this a long time ago. We mentioned Cameron Granato and

how that team USA, you saw the NCAA really start to expand after that series in

1998. And with that, obviously, some youth organizations. But it wasn't particularly

enough. And now you see the PWHL, again, fast forward in quite a bit, evolving and

you're seeing the girls game grow. So Haley, the kind of, I guess, reflection I'd

love from you is that we keep seeing these trailblazing women and leagues show up,

and the game is becoming more and more just readily available to girls, right? I'm

wondering if we can project forward five, 10 years, you know, of what this might

look like and that, you know, look, everybody has their struggle of coming up

through the ranks, Haley, in terms of especially girls hockey, but like we're really

heading towards a time period where this is, this

What is what is that like for you as someone who is at the top?

It's one of my favorite things to see.

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attention to detail and things like that it's it's massive for the game and i think

it it causes more girls to be more excited about the sport and to want to try it

for themselves yeah and i love it haley i'll sing saying saying closing too that

bob i think you might have dropped an idea a lot of a lot of tournaments might be

looking for those charm bracelets now instead of trophies yeah that's a pretty pretty

cool thinking outside the bucks but bob thank you so much for taking the time to

join us today. We really got to dive in this. It's always great to share it. And

for the audience listening, we're going to put a link in the profile here to let

you explore some of the resources, the Nihil League and everything that Bob told us

here today. If you're looking to expand your girls program or just looking for

ideas, that's part of the rising ties, lifts all ships, mentality, take a look,

because this league is massive, right?

And if you want to tell them to go on our site and hit the news tab, they'll see

the testimonial from Cammy and from man.

in that area I'm playing women's hockey there. So it's a testament to the program

you've built, so. Thanks. Yeah, I like to say they know you, Haley, but I

appreciate to what you. All right. That's going to do it for this episode of Our

Girls Play Hockey. Remember, if you have any questions, thoughts, comments, email us,

team at Our Kids Playhockey .com or click the link accompanying this episode in the

description. You can text us, leave your name, where you're from, what your question

is. We love discussing that on the show. And for all of you who email us, we do

get them. We reply to all of them if you're wondering if we do. So keep them

coming. But for Haley, for Bob, I'm Lee. We'll see you on the next Our Girls Play

Hockey. Take care, everybody. Enjoy your hockey. We hope you enjoyed this edition of

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