Roque Shines as Sault Ste Marie Surges
January 14, 2016
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
SAULT STE. MARIE – Abby Roque has taken a somewhat unusual route to reach another high level of hockey.
The Sault Ste. Marie High School senior, an accomplished international player on the women's side, is the only female playing on her school's boys hockey team, as she’s been each of her four seasons with the Blue Devils. She is the only girl to have ever played for the Sault, which is home to one of the top boys programs in the state.
The Blue Devils, two-time MHSAA champions who finished second in the Division 3 playoffs in 2013 and 2014 and reached the Quarterfinals last year, are 10-4-1 this winter.
Roque, a forward who also plays on the team's top power play unit, has five goals and 14 assists. She has received a scholarship to play for the University of Wisconsin, which has one of the nation's premier women's hockey programs. The Badgers, coached by former Olympian and NHL star Mark Johnson, are currently ranked second in the country.
"It has really helped me see how college hockey will be," Roque said before a recent practice as the Blue Devils prepared for the Sault Lions Showcase this weekend and games against Dearborn Divine Child and Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice. Sault Ste. Marie is ranked No. 9 in Division 3 this week.
"It's been a good four years. It has helped me improve every single year," she added. "I've never been the best player on the team, but that has made me work hard to try to be the best player on the team.”
Last season, Roque was one of 15 girls who played on boys high school hockey teams in Michigan and earned Division 3 all-state second team honors.
She also played on the U.S. Women's Under-18 International Ice Hockey Federation world championship team that won gold in 2015.
"The speed of the guys high school game has helped me prepare for women's college hockey," she said.
While not as fast on the high school ice, Roque knows how to compensate against the boys. Asked for her primary strength, she said, "my smarts on the ice. The guys are very fast, they are very powerful. I have to make the right pass. My stick handling skills are good."
Those skills also give her a decided edge when she does play against other females, such as the IIHF world tourney, where she led the world juniors in face-offs. Even though checking is not allowed in the girls game, her experience in the more physical brand of boys hockey has helped provide a major advantage.
"I do enjoy the checking. The physical part of hockey is great," she said with a chuckle. "Girls hold the puck longer. Guys come at you (faster and harder) and you have to move the puck faster."
Getting knocked around in the corner in boys games is no problem. "I'm not intimidated by anyone on the ice," she said. "I've gotten stronger playing with the guys. I'm clearly not as strong, but I hold my own. It is all really just hockey to me at this point."
Her Sault coach, John Ferroni, said many opposing players and fans are not even aware there is a female on the ice. "She has definitely learned how to manage herself in the boys game," he said. "She is very competitive, sometimes even too competitive."
Indeed, she says, "I try to be the intimidating one on the ice."
That is not surprising since she has grown up with hockey a major part of her life. She began playing at age 4 and her father, Jim, is a former hockey coach at Lake Superior State University. Her uncle, Tom Bissett, is hockey coach at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
"If kids inherit things from their parents, she has inherited her dad's hockey IQ. She picked up the sport and has had a lot of hockey conversations with her father, and she comes from a hockey family," Ferroni said, noting her mother also has a strong athletic background.
Roque, who also has played golf and soccer and boasts 4.0 grade-point average taking advanced placement classes, said playing boys hockey was not a hard decision. She played in the strong Sault boys youth program from day one and realized the boys were the direction to take after playing girls hockey in the fall as an eighth grader.
"She always played with good hockey players, and they always accepted her as a girl," said Ferroni, in his fifth year as Sault coach. He said Roque "understands the game real well and made the commitment a long time ago. She is very dedicated to the sport."
Ferroni said Roque "has decent speed and decent quickness at the boys level. She is a strong skater and is very hard to knock off the puck. She is very elusive and always seems aware of what is going on around her."
That ability to see the game makes her "a playmaker without question" according to Ferroni. "She passes the puck extremely well; she has good, strong passing skills."
Ferroni admits he "had to look at a lot of things before taking her" on the team. After that process concluded, he said, "I knew she would be fine, but no way did I think she would rise to the level she has risen to. I didn't see that (second team all-state) coming."
After checking out girls programs, Roque and Ferroni realized the Sault High School boys team would be the best path to follow. Ferroni said playing against other girls was not fast enough, and the puck movement among the boys was much better.
"We afforded her and gave her a great opportunity," Ferroni said. "She walked into a good, strong program as a freshman and was not just being a player, but was a real solid player. She definitely has raised the bar around here for girls.
"She has helped us as much as we have helped her."
Roque said Wisconsin "was the right fit for me. I loved everything about it, about Madison. Everything is about hockey. I just couldn't go anywhere else."
Roque also received scholarship offers from women's programs at North Dakota, Boston College and Boston University, among other schools.
This school year's participation figures will not be compiled until the spring, but about 250 girls total played on MHSAA boys teams in 2014-15.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sault Ste. Marie's Abby Roque positions herself near the net during one of her team's games. (Middle) Roque is the first girl to play on the Sault's boys hockey team. (Below) Roque, here on her U.S. Under-18 team, brings international experience to the high school season. (Photos courtesy of the Sault Ste. Marie athletic department.)
Flint's Phillips Named NHL 'Community Hero'
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 20, 2019
Rico Phillips had convinced himself before Wednesday night’s NHL Awards that he wasn’t going to win the Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award.
It was the easiest way to kill nerves that went along with having to speak in front of a room filled with NHL superstars and legends, as well as a national television audience.
But as the award was about to be announced, and a video montage started playing on the screen, the realization he could win started to come back to Phillips. Then O’Ree said his name.
“When I watched Willie O’Ree say my name, it was like this snapshot of time froze, and I was like, ‘No way,’” said Phillips, an MHSAA hockey official and the founder of the Flint Inner City Youth Hockey Program. “I embraced my wife. She has been the person that has been the best advisor to me, and to have her here with me was an incredible moment.”
Phillips was honored for founding and directing his organization, which has given a cost-free opportunity to play the game to about 150 kids ages 8-11 in Flint since 2010. He was one of three finalists, along with Tammi Lyncy of Washington, D.C., and Anthony Benavides of Detroit.
Fans submitted candidates for the award, and the field was whittled to the final three who were then voted on by the public.
The award is named after Hockey Hall of Famer O’Ree, who broke the NHL color barrier in 1958, and who has worked as the league’s diversity ambassador for more than 20 years. It is given to “an individual who – throughout the game of hockey – has positively impacted his or her community, culture or society,” according to a release from the NHL. This was the second year it has been awarded.
“It was surreal, would be the first word,” Phillips said. “I felt an incredible honor – having just met Willie a couple months ago in person, he brings with him this magic. To look over and hear him say my name, it was like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening. Willie O’Ree – Willie O’Ree! – is giving me this award.”
Those who know Phillips could certainly believe it was happening, and that it was a well-deserved honor.
“I wasn’t surprised; I thought if anybody deserved that award, it was Rico,” said Steve Berriman, who serves as assigner and referee-in-chief for the Flint Ice Hockey Referees Association. “I was so darn proud; it was so well deserved. He’s immersed himself in the hockey culture. Whatever he’s accomplished has been all on Rico. He’s done it all himself. From where he’s started to where he’s come, and then the starting of this program, it’s 100 percent on him.”
Phillips, who is a firefighter in Flint, was introduced to the game during the 1980s and fell in love with it. He served as a student trainer for the hockey team at Flint Southwestern, and thanks to plenty of time spent with the officials while in that position, was convinced to get onto the ice wearing the stripes. He became an MHSAA registered official for ice hockey beginning with the 1990-91 season.
“I took up that challenge, and it was terrible at first, because I could barely skate,” Phillips said with a laugh. “One of the other challenges, besides learning how to skate, is that I was met with racial slurs and taunts. I was young, and it was tough. I thought, ‘What did I get myself into?’ I had some people who helped talk me through it.”
Phillips said those mentors explained to him that quitting would give those who taunted him what they wanted, and more than 30 years later, he’s still on the ice. He said he officiates about 40 high school games per year and has worked three MHSAA Semifinals and a handful of Quarterfinals.
It was during the late 1990s that the idea for the Flint Inner City Youth Hockey Program came to Phillips.
“As a hockey referee, in particular, it wasn’t just playing, I know the lack of cultural diversity (in hockey),” Phillips said. “It didn’t bother me, so to speak. But I thought, you know what, there’s something that can be done about this.”
About a decade later, he put the wheels in motion and went to the Flint-based Perani Hockey World to ask for financial assistance. Perani took things a step further, offering to outfit all of the players from head to toe, giving Phillips and his organization 54 sets of gear in total in the first year.
After that first year, a funder fell through. But four years later, the United Way stepped in and provided funding to pay for ice time. The Flint Firebirds of the Ontario Hockey League have since stepped in to assist with ice time.
“One of the things I appreciate about our program is that it’s a community collaborative effort,” Phillips said. “These folks give to us without a non-profit status.”
Since its inception, Phillips said that the program has served about 150 players. Each player not only receives gear and instruction at no cost, but also transportation to and from the arena.
“We have 12 that went on to continue playing hockey, which is huge,” Phillips said. “I’m very proud of that – I didn’t expect that. We help and seek out additional funding for our participants that come through to help with the cost as they move on. The kids that come to our program, they don’t understand or know about hockey or even ice skating. We’re taking these families and teaching them to love this sport.”
Phillips has been saddened by the decline of the sport in the Flint area, saying that when he began officiating there were more than 20 high school teams in the area, and now there are fewer than 10. He said he also struggles to fill his program each year.
He hopes that will change with the exposure that has come with this award.
“What I’m hoping is this opens up the doors a little more, that this brings some gravity,” Phillips said. “On the flip side, when talking about funding, (since he was announced as a finalist for the award) I’ve had owners of pro teams and others coming up to me saying, ‘We’re going to send you equipment and send you some funding.’ This definitely puts our program on the map – on the bigger map. It means a lot of more intense work that I have to do.”
The award also shined a positive light on Flint, which is something Phillips did not take for granted.
“It was an overwhelming response that I received from the community,” Phillips said. “There were watch parties – I just saw a video a little while ago of when the announcement was made, and they just went crazy. It means the world. I say this a lot of times, but there seems to be a dark cloud that likes to hang over Flint and has for decades. There are so many of us that are little lights that shine, and this was a big shining light. Every opportunity we get in Flint to pick our heads up and be proud is important.”
Click for more on the Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award.
PHOTOS: (Top) From right, Rico Phillips, wife Sandy and NHL Hall of Famer Willie O'Ree. (Middle) Phillips drops the puck for a face-off during the Division 3 Semifinal between Houghton and Riverview Gabriel Richard this winter. (Below) Phillips, left, with his award and the Nashville Predators' P.K. Subban. (Top and below photos courtesy of Rico Phillips.)