For Andy Cochran, executive director of the Blue Jackets Foundation and CBJ's senior director of community development, it was another great day to encourage Central Ohio's youth to get on the ice. Removing barriers to the sport is a pillar of the foundation through programs such as Learn to Play, Get Out and Learn, and the Blue Jackets Hockey League, which are great conduits for introducing girls to hockey. It has become.
It's clear that the work is having an impact, especially considering how many of the Saturday clinic participants are from central Ohio and have gone through these programs.
“When we first started the clinic, we had about 60 girls on the ice, and they came from all over the area,” Cochlen said. “What I've seen this time is that the kids on the ice have actually grown through the Blue Jackets program, which is designed to remove barriers from the game. That's what we're working on at the grassroots level. Our mission is to provide growth opportunities for girls in Central Ohio so they can stay in their own beds, be with their friends, and play the games they love.”
McLaughlin-Bitttle grew up in Sheffield Village, a suburb west of Cleveland in northern Ohio, rather than central Ohio, but her story shows how far women's hockey has come in the Buckeye State. Her mother made her take ballet lessons for a year instead of following her brother into hockey, but it soon became clear that her true love was on the ice. She participated in practices for most of her youth career and was the only girl on Illyria Catholic's high school team, but she later joined the all-girls junior team known as the Ohio Flames. I heard about its existence.
From there, she realized she had a chance to continue her career at the collegiate level and played four years at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, where she finished her career as the NCAA career saves leader.
Luckily, she qualified in the spring of 2009 and immediately got a chance to try out for the 2010 U.S. Olympic team, which she eventually qualified for. McLaughlin-Bitttle won silver medals with Team USA that year and in 2014, after which she spent two seasons in the fledgling Professional National Women's Hockey League. She made 60 saves in her final game, propelling the Buffalo team to the 2017 NWHL Isobel Cup title and was named MVP of the championship game.
This is almost unbelievable, in part because the infrastructure wasn't in place for McLaughlin-Bitttle to rise to the top. Now, as a teacher and instructor, she has the unique ability to usher in even bigger and better times for women's hockey and women's hockey.
“Now, some of the girls that I coached when I was on the national team and came to these events are getting older and getting to an age where I'm getting pictures on Instagram or something like, 'Hey.' , do you remember me?'' And now she's playing at the University of Wisconsin and she was also playing on the U-18 national team. I was coaching at the national team level, so we were both on the ice at the same time. I've known her since she was 5 years old.
“Awesome. It's such an amazing place for us and all my old teammates to be able to do what we've done and do what we've done and to be able to see them through to the end. There it is.”
