It’s a girl’s world on the ice
Rudy Erfle is known in local hockey circles as the president of the Pointe-Claire Oldtimers Tournament. But Erfle is also a long-time minor hockey coach. How did you start coaching?
Erfle: My oldest daughter, Eva, is 27 now and I coached her in hockey. And now I coach my youngest daughter, Marina. She’ll be 18 soon. I also have my boys in between as well. (Laughs.)
What was girls’ hockey like back then?
Erfle: Back then there was only one girls’ hockey team. My daughter was 10 years old and some of the other players were 18, 19 years old. It was quite an age difference.
What was that experience like?
Erfle: It was quite interesting. You had girls like my daughter who were quite tiny and other girls that were 18 years old and were grown women already. It was quite the dressing room.
Is the growth of girls’ hockey slowing?
Erfle: That’s what seems to have happened. Also, a few years ago, Hockey Quebec said if you were registered as a girl. you had to play girls’ hockey — unless it was a double-letter team. Then two or three years ago, they changed their mind. Now you
can play wherever you want. A boys’ team or girls’ team. So now a lot of girls starting out go play on a boys’ team in single letter hockey. So it’s taken away from the girls’ program.
Should girls have the option to choose?
Erfle: Well, the way it is in Ontario, if you’re a girl you have to play girls’ hockey and their hockey program has done very well. They have a lot of numbers and a lot of divisions. I don’t think we’re going to improve or progress until we have that rule in place again.
Is that the major hurdle facing the game here?
Erfle: With the Canadian Olympic women’s team doing so well and all that, there are a lot of girls interested in hockey. Parents of younger girls, of course, think they should put their daughters in boys’ hockey to get the calibre of play and the skill development and stuff like that. Which we’d have in girls’ hockey, of course, if we had the numbers. So it’s just a vicious circle.
How did you become a midget Royals co-coach with Erroll Moore?
Erfle: The last two years I’ve co-coached with Erroll. He’s officially the head coach because you can only have one head coach.
Do you have the good cop, bad cop routine going?
Erfle: Yeah. I think the girls like Erroll a bit better than me. He’s a bit nicer to them; I’m more of a hard a--. (Laughs.) But it works well with the two of us together.
How long have you been involved with Pointe-Claire Oldtimers?
Erfle: I’ve been chairman of the tournament for four years. I’ve been playing there since I was 36 and I’ll be turning 52 next week. Which day is your birthday?
Erfle: Dec. 23rd. What a ripoff that was.
Erfle: Exactly. They always told me I could expect a bigger gift at Christmas.
jmeagher@montrealgazette.com