The team began in the summer of 2006, the brainchild of Kathy Ostrowski and Brenda O'Rourke, both of whom played in Chicks With Sticks (CWS), a beginning women's hockey league. Summer hockey with CWS was so much fun they wanted to carry it over into the fall, creating a team to play in the Michigan Senior Women's Hockey League (MSWHL). They were not alone. Enough CWSers were interested in playing fall hockey two brand new teams came together!
Kathy and Brenda agreed to co-manage, Brenda's significant other submitted "Spitfires" as a
suggested team name, and Carolyn Sharp, another CWS and ice hockey newbie, agreed to design the logo.
So, the next issue was coaching. We found a willing victim soul in first year coach Larry Gariepy,
who cut his coaching teeth as an assistant in the CWS league in summer 2006.
He was joined by assistant coach Brian Ostrowski. With a lot of invested time and infinite patience,
Coach Larry and Coach Brian took a diverse group of novice women hockey players (some of us had only strapped on
ice skates for the first time that summer!) into the realm of Travel Hockey.
It was a new experience for all of us, and our first year was full of surprises and eye opening moments as we discovered what competitive hockey was all about. We weathered many storms, but the sun shone on us one day in March 2007 during the MSWHL Ruicci Cup tournament when we won our first game! It took us a long time, a lot of practice, and quite a bit of beer, but we did it!
We are excited to build on last year's growth, and look forward to our second year in the MSWHL Recreation II division.