The Olds Minor Hockey Association and the Olds College Broncos women’s hockey team aren’t horsing around as they are set to take their pilot project to the next level.
In 2024-2025, the Broncos Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) women’s hockey players helped out with some on-ice sessions and coaching. Now the two organizations have agreed to a long-term partnership to align with the player development, culture, and branding of the Olds College Broncos female program. The Junior Broncos will still remain under the governance and operational decision making of OMHA.
Levi Ogilvie, Olds Minor Hockey’s Director for the Female Program, says their next steps are to secure funding so their female athletes can look up to the Broncos by being a Bronco. They are working together to get the new rebranded jerseys in place for the upcoming season.
Ogilvie says it is going to look good, and be fun for the girls to have something to call their own. He says “just grow the game. The way that female hockey is going is like, we’ve got the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League), Statistics Canada for Hockey Canada just put out a stat that 20 per cent of the registration was female athletes this year and that is the highest it’s ever been. The growth rate for female hockey is huge and there is such a movement towards it. So we want to build on it and have these female athletes have a place to play. So we are looking forward to it and growing the game at the same time.”
Matt McKnight, Head Coach of the Olds College Broncos women’s hockey team, says they want to expand the interaction with the Olds Minor Hockey female players going forward. He notes the Broncos involvement with minor hockey was always there to some extent – but not as organized as this. He says “when Levi became the (OMHA) Female Coordinator, both our daughters are good friends so we kind of knew each other from that, and he just had mentioned how this was his vision and hopefully we could make some kind of a partnership work. Obviously last year, kind of just a test run, pilot year, whatever. Then hopefully not trying get too big off the start that you can’t keep obtaining what you are doing but slowly building into, yeah like I said, some off-ice things while keeping the on-ice thing just a positive experience for everybody is what I think the goal of everything is.”
Ogilvie says they want it to grow beyond the Town of Olds so that players from the surrounding communities want to come here to be a Junior Bronco.
Get in touch with Levi via email – femalehockey@oldsminorhockey.com – or by going to the OMHA website. He says “so if there are businesses out that are interested in supporting female hockey and watch it grow in this local area, I’m more than willing to send a sponsorship package that we are going to sending out here to local businesses right away as well. We’re definitely looking for some businesses to support this female hockey growth within Olds and help the rebrand as well that goes with it.”
Listen to 96.5 The Ranch’s conversation with Levi Ogilvie.
The Ranch also spoke with Matt McKnight.
