For the first time since the Buffalo Sabres acquired the franchise in 2008, the Jr. Sabres will be offering designated teams for girls to play junior hockey, starting this year. 

"Kevyn Adams, back when he ran the program, was looking into it a little bit," Jr. Sabres president and Sabres alum Pat Kaleta said. "My journey with my now-wife [Maddie Elia, a Nichols and Buffalo Beauts alum], who played pro hockey, kind of started to get me involved in getting more and more into girls hockey. On top of what I do for Leaning to Play and seeing the amount of girls — it's right around 20% of our athletes are female that start to play hockey. So I think all in all, when talking to, you know, my brass I guess from the Jr. Sabres and coming together, it was something that we were really passionate about and something that we wanted to do." 

With both the numbers and personal anecdotes to back up the growth among women and girls in hockey regionally, Kaleta knew it was time to see this through. 

"We feel that it was a step that Western New York needed to take for girls hockey,” he said. “I have a little vested interest with my family now, but we want to do what's right for the girls around Western New York and have them have the same opportunity as the boys do." 

The sentiment was echoed by the woman Kaleta put at the helm of this undertaking: Nicole Brown, former executive director of the LA Jr. Kings and Lions as well as hockey mom to four children.

"Having a daughter made the decision that much easier for me to step in and take on the role and bring it to fruition," Brown said of when Kaleta initially got in touch with her. "My biggest thing is I want to develop the girls here, the right way and I want them to have access to all of the same amazing coaches, facilities, games, tournaments, everything that the boys have, I want the girls to have, too."

Brown has only been in Buffalo for less than a year, but having roots in Ithaca and Syracuse lends her to an understanding of the market, including recognizing today's stars who call Western New York home.  

"Having those girls, those women who have come up in the area and gone on to do those things, that's the best thing that we can hope for," Brown said. "And hopefully some of those girls, some of those women will come back once we started this program and they'll jump on the ice with the girls and they'll come talk to them and be the role models that those girls need to see."

The program plans roll out two teams, 12U and 14U with mixed birth years, to jumpstart competition.