GIRLS
the girls don’t consider themselves a house team, but more of a
“Rec-Select” team.
the Express into an independent team with their own jerseys,
all-girls’ tournaments.
“Right now, I’m just working on developing them so that
when we do go to tournaments, we don’t get beat up,” Pacey
said, “There’s a lot of girls who had never really touched the puck
before playing with
Express.”
the team, Pacey saw that
many young girls in the
Orlando area were facing
the same challenges that
she had gone through
growing up, being the
only girl in established
boys’ leagues with
low-skill girls’ teams as
her only other option.
established, many of her
players would just skate
around and barely touch
the puck mainly due to a
Through hard work
girls have proudly enhanced their skill development since their
new skills have caused many of her players to break out and
achieve things on the ice that they had never been able to do
Another noted accomplishment for the Express program is
“Our program is run through RDV, but we are not funded
by RDV, so I’ve been doing a lot of fundraising on my own,” Pacey
said. “We’ve had a lot of people give to the program or give us
As the Orlando hockey community grows, the Express
supporters is a hockey player himself, who Pacey teaches Adult
League hockey to.
“We have one main sponsor, and he’s been really good to us.
His name is Michael Giddings, and his company is HockeyPhotogs.
com. He gives us a
generous amount of
money every year since
we’ve existed,” Pacey
said, “He’s been really
good to us, and he’s
a very good friend of
mine who I teach Adult
League hockey to. He’s
just a good person who’s
local programs.”
In her coaching
career, Pacey has
learned that the value
and importance of
developing hockey
programs lies with
the young athletes
themselves, something
that not all coaches come to realize. Pacey says that what is
disheartening about being in the ‘hockey business’ is how many
people seem only to care about taking the credit of a successful
program for themselves, and not the programs that they’re trying
to grow.
“I am nothing without my girls. If they don’t show up, then
our program is nothing. I want to see my girls go to the next
level,” Pacey said, “There are a bunch of girls who play other girl
programs around the state, and they do very well, but they’re
adamant about playing for Express when they can, which is really
See GIRLS, page 29