Here are all the 'teams' listed on the Briar Woods website. WHY isn't their hockey team listed? I don't get it! Why is that okay? Can anyone please help me?

Baseball
Cheerleading
Cross Country
Football
Golf
Gymnastics
Men's Basketball
Men's Lacrosse
Men's Soccer
Softball
Softball (JV)
Sports Medicine
Swimming
Tennis
Track and Field
Volleyball
Women's Basketball
Women's Lacrosse
Women's Soccer
Wrestling

simple, hockey is for Canadians

Maybe it was just an oversight.

Agreed. The far reaching effects of a failing NHL.

Answered my own question: http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/...to_Victory.aspx

Ice hockey isn't considered an official team sport in Loudoun County schools. Huh.

Because it's a "club" not an official team. Although, so is swimming, I think.

Players have to pay at least 500 bucks to play if they don't find sponsorship and that doesn't include the crazy cost of their gear. Wow. Maybe I should reconsider having our son take hockey lessons! If I want his heart to be torn out of his chest.

Swimming is an official team sport.

Speaking of the Briar Woods hockey team, they played very well against Stone Bridge last Friday, considering how young our team is.

Swimming is not a sport, it is simply a way to keep from drowning - George Carlin

A few things in response...LCPS has too many sports to manage as we speak. Our schools are AA and so have limited population. The quality of the teams fielded by the schools is fairly watered down by the combination of many sports, limited participants, and the growth of single-sport specialization by many of the best athletes. Swimming, golf and cross country are the 3 oof campus sports offerred by LCPS (they are all co-ed if you will, only golf has direct competition between boys and girls). Golf courses allow free use for the schools in competitions, cross country is held either on campus or at nearby parks, so no usage fee. Swim events are all held at Ida Lee or Claude Moore, county-owned facilities. To my knowledge, there is one ice rink in the county and it is privately owned. The cost of rental for schools would be exorbitant. These costs could not be passed on to students as none of the other costs are passed on to students in other sports. The $100 participation fee is put in the LCPS general fund, and is not 'dedicated' to athletics. Currently, several schools have combined teams because of the lack of interest (I have limitied knowledge of hockey but I believe teams generally need 20 -25 players) Due to Title IX, adding a boys sport is likely to cause an imbalance in opportunity for girls. I assume LCPS would have to add Field Hockey, another sport that would be difficult to support due to lack of interest as well as facilities. Also, I imagine there are some safety/liability issues involved. Not sure what kind of insurance impliactions would be involved, but certainly an additional athletic trainer would have to be hired for each school to serve the needs of the school. Transportation to practice would also be a hug cost factor; students are required to ride buses to off-campus practice, imagine the cost of transporting kids from Purcellville to the Ashburn Ice house. Also, I am pretty sure no other school systems in the area have hockey teams as a sport (as you mentioned, it is not a VHSL sport). In Massachusetts, it is a school sport, just as skiing is in some states, but the availability of facilities as well as interest in these sports is greater.
All this being said, I think Ice Hockey is an AWESOME sport, and it is a lfelong sport ( i have many friends who STILL play in their 40s). Promotes all of the same values as other sports and is a good spectator sport. If your son loves hockey, encourage him to participate--not being able to 'play for your school' in a sport is not that big of a deal. Oh and the $$$ isn't as bad as you think, imagine the expenses for kids who play softball and baseball, the gloves, the cleats, the bats, etc are expensive too

It's definitely not because there is a shortage of players in the area (typically there are 17 players on a team), or the cost, or because it's an insurance liability issue (insurance liability is covered just like football or any other contact school sport through personal insurance and waivers of liability).

The reality is that most of the higher skilled hockey players don't play HS level hockey because it not recognized as an official school sport and because they already play on various travel local hockey teams around the area (such as the Ashburn Xtreme, Reston Raiders, Prince William, Washington Little Caps, Team Maryland, etc) which is far more skilled and competitive. These players already practice 2-3 times a week (some also attend additional weekly skill sessions) and play league games on the weekends...so there is not a lot of additional training and practice required for HS hockey.

And yes, playing hockey is expensive. The annual cost of playing on travel teams range from $2,500-$4,500 to help cover the cost of ice and coaching, plus equipment, plus travel expense, plus various training camps and skill sessions. But in comparison, the cost of playing high school hockey is seen as a drop in the bucket.

The Washington Capitals have brought a lot of excitement to the WDC area and the game is growing in popularity at all age levels (the number of kids now playing hockey is exploding in the area).

In my opinion, Loudoun County School Board needs to get with the program and add Hockey as an official HS school sport or else many travel hockey players will continue to treat HS hockey as being very low priority.

Isn't that true of (in particular) soccer, but also baseball? Of the 'big' sports, it seems like only football and hoops would attract the elite athletes on a HS team.

It seems to me that it all depends on the popularity of the sport at the collegiate level. The more popular it is as a college sport, the more likely it will be supported as a HS sport.

The first statement here reminds me a lot of soccer, about how it's growing in popularity, Pele is playing for NY, the MLS is big, blah blah blah. And yet it still isn't that big a deal. Check out the crowds when a local high school team hosts a region champ. game or state quarterfinal in late May early June. See how many people come to a game. Then compare that crowd to the worst football crowd all year. Way more fans at a football game. The second argument doesn't make sense to me-----------this is exactly how HS soccer is. The elite players put HS soccer as a distant second on priorities, going so far as to miss HS GAMES to attend club team PRACTICE. If anything, LCPS should look to eliminate JV soccer and ban dual participation. And as I mentioned previously, the logistics (facilities, TitleIX, qualified coaches) all prevent this from becoming a reality. Remember this, if LCPS makes hockey an official sport, it would be the ONLY municipality in the state (out of 95 counties and probably a dozen cities) to do so. Not sure which program you mean.

Excellent point, evidenced by the narrow support enjoyed not only by ice hockey at the collegiate level, but also field hockey and men's and women's lacrosse. In the meantime, witness the explosion of softball in HS following the emergence of college softball with visible stars.

In many high schools across the United States where hockey has become popular, HS hockey is an integral part of the process when transitioning to College Division I/III hockey teams. But not so in Virginia. Perhaps it's time for LCPS to revise their outdated appraoch and policies?

It doesn't have to a big cost burden to LCPS. Beacuse for hockey players, it's long been the norm to take resnsibility for transportation (either to teams located around the beltway or to varous "nearby" States on a frequent basis). In fact, tier-1 hockey players travel 20-30 miles a day just to attend weekly practice (and 100-500 miles for weekend games that are scheduled away). And, given the amount of outside practice and training that hockey players already receive, I don't think they need a lot of additional coaching, just someone to show up during the games to decide who plays where and provide a little instruction.

The good news is that travel/club hockey programs are very strong in Northern Virgina (many tier 1/ tier 2 hockey teams are ranked in the top 25 NATIONALLY). And at the next level, Virgina has several Junior Hockey A/B/C teams for 16-18 year old hockey players; is home to the Norfolk Admirals (a semi-pro AHL farm team to NHL Tampa Bay Lightning), and is a relatively short distance away from the the semi-pro AHL Hershey Bears (NHL Washington Caps farm team).

It may take more time for northern Virginia to adopt hockey as an official HS sport...so until then, hockey travel clubs will lead the way to offer HS players the development and a path forward to play at the next level.