Skating down the ice junior Kailee Neil shoves the boys to ground. She’s not afraid of the boys and she competes at their level.  

Neil joined a coed hockey team at the Jones Center this summer. 

“My team, right now, we’ve only lost one game out of like nine or ten that we’ve played,” Neil said.

Her team has 10 members, eight boys and two girls. She plays forward, either center or left wing.

“I started ice skating, back in March I got my first pair of hockey skates. I just started skating more,” Neil said. 

Her brother used to work at the Jones Center, and she would go and practice skating when he would go to work. After practicing so much she decided to join.

“Over the summer I decided that I wanted to play a sport because I haven’t played one in a while,” Neil said.

As mentioned earlier she believes it is easy to keep up with the boys in the league. She doesn’t think it’s difficult to play and keep up with the boys during practices and games. The way she handles the boys is by shoving them out of her way. 

“Just shove them. It’s not that hard. Yeah I get knocked down quite a few times but I knock down other people,” Neil said. 

Her other girl on her team, homeschooler Kellen Moore, found it intimidating at first but once the season got going she wasn’t as intimidated by them. Especially since they treat her like family. 

“They treat me like family, they were very welcoming at the beginning of the seasons and they’re fun to be around,” Moore said.

Moore also found it difficult to keep up with boys on the ice at first but as the season continued it became easier. 

“At the beginning, it was hard to keep up with them but as the season went on it got easier to catch up with them,” Moore said.  

Their team is off to a good start with only one loss. 

“It’s kinda just like when I’m in the moment, it brings me joy. After a win, I get really happy because we won,” Neil said.