History
In 1987, the late Kip Sawpel founded a girls’ ice hockey program at Simsbury High School. Around that same time, for a short period of time, Glastonbury High School also started and maintained a girls’ ice hockey team. As there were no other girls’ high schools to play, the teams played games with prep school teams and skating club teams. After the U.S. Women won the Women’s Ice Hockey Gold Medal in the 1998 Olympics, Greenwich High School started a girls’ ice hockey team, quickly followed by New Canaan High School. Within the next 3 years Fairfield and Ridgefield high schools also started girls’ ice hockey programs. By 2001-02, Greenwich, Fairfield, New Canaan, Staples, Trumbull and Darien all had established girls’ ice hockey teams.
In 2003-2004 the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference (FCIAC) began sponsoring girls’ hockey as a league sport. Soon thereafter, Wilton and St. Joseph high schools formed teams and joined the FCIAC league, which evolved into an 8 team conference. In addition, at approximately the same time, Hall/Conard, Hamden, Guilford, Hand, Simsbury, Notre Dame (Fairfield) and West Haven high schools formed girls’ hockey teams, and came together to create a second, independent league, the Central Connecticut Girls’ Hockey League (CCGHL). In 2011, with the Southern Connecticut Conference’s (SCC) decision to add girls’ ice hockey as a sponsored sport, the CCGHL ceased to operate, and the former CCGHL teams began play as members of the SCC. The SCC expanded several times after 2011. By 2017, as the SCC had expanded to 15 girls’ ice hockey teams, the league was divided into two divisions: the SCC North (6 teams) and SCC South (9 teams).
The first girls ice hockey state tournament was played at the conclusion of the 2005-2006 season, Kip Sawpel, Val Chamberlain, Doug Scott and Rich Bulan brought the coaches from both the FCIAC and the then CCGHL together to form and play the first Connecticut Girls’ Ice Hockey State Tournament. The state tournament was continued in the years that followed, with the FCIAC and the CCGHL/SCC alternating sponsorship of an 8 team state tournament. However, in 2015, Simsbury High School and East Catholic/Glastonbury/South Windsor were declared co-state champions after a double over-time contest. The game received national news media relating to the fact that the game was terminated after the second overtime while still tied, and co-champions were declared. Partly in response to that situation, and based upon the growth of the girls’ game, the CHSGHA was formed in 2015 by the FCIAC and the SCC to govern the girls’ high school ice hockey in Connecticut. The CHSGHA instituted a power ranking system for girls’ ice hockey, and the first CHSGHA sponsored state tournament was held in 2016 at Bennett Rink on the campus of West Haven High School. With the growth of the girls’ game, the CHSGHA expanded the girls’ ice hockey state tournament from 8 to 12 teams beginning with the 2017-2018 season.
In 2019, the Central Connecticut Conference (CCC) became the third Connecticut High School Athletic Conference to sponsor the sport of girls’ ice hockey, joining the CHSGHA compact with the FCIAC and SCC.
As of 2023-24, the CHSGHA has 21 member teams, made up of 91 participating Connecticut high schools.
State Champions
2006 New Canaan 4, Ridgefield 1
2007 New Canaan 2, Guilford 1 (OT)
2008 New Canaan 3, Greenwich 0
2009 Darien 3, New Canaan 2
2010 New Canaan 2, Darien 1
2011 New Canaan 7, Ridgefield 2
2012 Hall/Conard. 3, New Canaan 2 (OT)
2013 New Canaan 2, Hall/Conard 0
2014 Simsbury 4, Guilford 1
2015 Simsbury 2, East Catholic/Glastonbury/South Windsor 2 (2 OT)
2016 Darien 2, East Catholic/Glastonbury/South Windsor 2 (FIRST YEAR OF CHSGHA)
2017 Darien 4, Hamden 3 (OT)
2018 Darien 5, Suffield/Ellington/Enfield/Housatonic/MLC 2
2019 New Canaan 3, Darien 1
2020 no state championship held due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021 no state championship held due to COVID-19 pandemic
2022 New Canaan 4, Darien 3 (3 OT)
2023 Darien 5, Southington/Avon 3
2024 New Canaan 3, Stamford/Westhill/Staples 0
