TRAVERSE CITY— In the 2023-24 MHSAA hockey season, Traverse City will roll out their first-ever varsity girls’ program.
Like the boys’ co-op team in TC- they will also be known as the Bay Reps.
The girls’ team will be made up of members from seven different schools: Traverse City Central, West, St. Francis, Cadillac, Elk Rapids, Kalkaska, and Mancelona.
The team will be coached by Traverse City native and former ACHA D1 University of Michigan women’s hockey forward, Taylor Lundberg.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Lundberg said.
As a Traverse City native, she would have loved for this opportunity to have existed in her high school years. Instead, she ended up with a billet family in Lansing to chase her hockey dreams during her junior and senior years of high school.
She then went off to play NCAA Division III hockey at Colby College, before transferring to the University of Michigan to play her remaining years at the ACHA Division I level.
“[Now] these girls have something to look forward to that myself and people before me didn’t,” the head coach said. “I think the girls are starting to realize what a big deal it is. Some of the parents that have been around for a while have had older daughters or other kids go through Traverse City Hockey, and they’re just like, wow, this is huge for this to be happening.”
The girls’ Bay Reps program will be hosting their tryouts for the ‘23-24 season Oct. 31 through Nov.1.
This team is not expected to be made up of beginners, despite the program itself being brand new.
“We have really high expectations. It’s not come learn to play,” Lundberg said. “It’s we’re having competitive tryouts. We are going to most likely going to be trimming the team, having it be a competitive atmosphere where we have high expectations and girls have to work hard for their spots. They have to work hard for their ice time, and we want to enter the league and be number one right away.”