The "good for a girl" comment is completely ridiculous. Asinine at best. My question is how long will the two girls be playing with the boys? I have sons and daughters, all of whom play lax. I'm not sure that a girl really benefits from playing the boys game because the games are so tremendously different. I could be completely wrong though. From an offensive player using a completely different stick and creating shooting, catching, cradling, checking and defensive habits that don't translate over to the girls game, to the goalie who is depending on people playing a completely different and more physical style of defense, I'm just not sure how long they should continue. But there is also the social part of it, although to a much lesser degree. I'm not being negative at all! I think they are both doing very well on one of the top teams in the age group, so that is not where this question is coming from. Just curious.
I have an older daughter who plays and I think I can answer this question. Offensively it could help. If you look at the D1 women's scene the prime example is Selena Lasota who plays for Northwestern. She grew up playing boys box lacrosse in BC. She didn't try girls lax until her sophomore or junior year in HS and went to a recruiting tournament with a B team in a B bracket. NU assistant spotted her and the rest is history. U19 gold medal for Canada and top dog at NU. I might not have gotten all the details perfect, I'm going by memory. Levy up at Syracuse is another example. She shoots like a boy with low to high sidearm rippers from the outside. Shots like that aren't normally seen in the women's game. Female goalies aren't normally even thinking about a shot from outside the 8 meter arc.
With regards to the goalie, in the long run it might hurt her game. Because of shooting space rules most girls shoot much closer than boys. Thats one of the reasons where a good D1 female goalie has save percentages around 50% and a men's D1 goalie could be as high as 70%. Closer shots are harder to save. Playing boys she's going to see less of those in close shots. Whether that effects her game I guess is up to her. At 9 years old I doubt she cares.
I think the key thing to take away is these are 9, maybe 10 year old kids. Are they having fun? If they are, they'll keep playing and hopefully succeed wherever they end up. I've seen the goalie at a boys town game. She was playing defense and she looked to be having a good time of it. She wasn't the best defenseman I've seen but she was above average and more than I expected from a kid who plays goalie. That says to me the girl likes the physicality of the sport. I think that's great. Of course that could all change when the hormones hit but she was having fun and really that's what kids sports should be about. Fun. Crazy, I know.
