Recent interest in the Winter Olympics and continued success in women's professional hockey may make it difficult to register your daughter for hockey this year.
The Sun Parlour Female Hockey Association says interest in girls' hockey continues to soar, with that interest attributed to success in women's and men's hockey during the Olympics and the PWHL.
Kyrstin Goulding, Communications Convenor for the Association, says each year they've seen growing interest in the sport.
In the 2022-23 season, registration sat at 402 players. The two seasons following that saw 454 girls registered. In this most recent 2025-26 season, the association had 477 girls registered, and that number is expected to rise this upcoming season.
Goulding says the sport has become more available to girls.
"They're just out there more, right, we're seeing girls succeeding in hockey, and more aware of it, and more aware of the programs that are available to girls in Windsor and Essex County."
She says the Olympics always draw interest, and the girls in the association loved watching women represent Canada.
"There was many team watch parties when they were away at tournaments, or games, and they would take a break in their day and watch some of the Canada games throughout the Olympics, it was always exciting to see. In the community I've seen more males interested in watching the female hockey where they may have not been before, and girls just enjoying watching the hockey as well."
The Sun Parlour Girls Hockey Association teamed up with First Shift over the winter, which is a program that offers six on-ice sessions and equipment for girls who are unsure if they want to play hockey.
Goulding says this year there were 38 girls who joined that program.
"And after those six weeks wrapped up, our fundamentals program that we offer afterwards from January to March, we had 31 of those girls want to continue on into hockey, and that's huge. So it was nice to see so many girls after trying hockey... enjoy it, and want to continue on with it."
Travel hockey tryouts will start in mid-April, while house league registration opens in May.
There will also be another First Shift Program available this June for those who are unsure if they want to play hockey
Sun Parlour Girls Hockey Association offers leagues from U9 to U22.