By Suzanne Hodgson

Staff Writer

For Christmas this year, one of Shannon Farrell’s wishes came true: she beat her brother at a game of one-on-one hockey.

Farrell, a 14-year-old Berwick Academy student, practices at her home ice rink in Kennebunk, and with her two teams, the Berwick Academy girls hockey team and the Biddeford Lady Breakers.

Next month, Farrell will join another team as part of the New England Girls Hockey Festival Team.

“I’m really excited,” said Farrell, who will compete in her third festival.

Farrell early on took hockey cues from her brother.

“I wanted to be like him when I was a little kid,” Farrell said.

At a very young age she took beginner figure skating lessons at the Biddeford ice rink.

She soon figured out figure skating might not be her calling after getting in trouble for checking some of her friends into the walls.

“It used to be pretty funny,” said Farrell’s father, Terrance.

She moved up to another type of beginners’ skate program and there was introduced to her current coach, Guy Audet.

Audet has coached Farrell and some other players on her Biddeford team since they were all 8 or 9.

Now, he’s proud that most years three or four of his players occupy most of the five open spots for the New England Tournament team.

Audet has been coaching girls hockey for 12 years and says his secret for coaching a winning team is to coach them just like the boys.

“Girls are much easier to coach than boys because they have camaraderie. They help out girls that are underachievers, the boys wouldn’t,” Audet said.

He also said having so many girls on the tournament team speaks highly for his motivated players.

“It says a lot for the younger talent, they proved themselves. A lot of it is hard work on the kids’ part,” Audet said. “They’re looking to better themselves each and every time they’re on the ice.”

Also competing with Farrell this year are two other girls from her Biddeford hockey team and tournament veterans, Abby Rutt, 15, of Scarborough, and Sara Grover, 16, of Biddeford.

Farrell and Rutt tried out at North Yarmouth Academy against about 30 other girls last month. Players had to skate for 20 minutes to see how they handled the puck, followed by a scrimmage. Five players were originally selected from each New England state.

Grover, who has also previously competed on festival teams, was sick the day of the competition.

“Every year the competition there has been beyond what I’m looking for,” Grover said.

She was able to submit her scores from the previous year into a pool of New England girl hockey players, and her scores were high enough to be accepted to a team.

Grover hopes this year some preparatory high school coaches will recruit her for her last two years playing high school hockey.

Farrell and her parents are already looking bigger.

While no Division 1 colleges can contact her yet because of her age, some have asked Audet to keep them informed of Farrell’s progress. At the competition, a number of college and preparatory school coaches will be present. Five or six of the 48 players will be picked for the national team after the festival.

Farrell has yet to be picked in past years, but she is hopeful this year it will happen.

While she says she definitely wants to play on a college hockey team, when she was younger, Farrell dreamed of being the first woman National Hockey League player.

“There’s always the Olympics,” her father said.

Being the only female on the team wouldn’t be a new experience for her. Last year, when Farrell played on Kennebunk High School’s hockey team, she was the only girl on the varsity team.

Playing center, she faced off against a 6-foot-tall Biddeford player and said the experience was scary.

“With boys you have to keep your head up, and watch. I used to just get rid of it [the puck]. I didn’t want to get hit. With girls, you have more time to skate,” said Farrell. “Most of the boys I played against wouldn’t go out to head hunt me, but there was always one or two kids on each team that would.”

One boy who would never check Farrell is her father, who has built a backyard ice rink for his daughter.

During an afternoon game last Sunday, Terrance was in the stands watching his daughter skate against Maine Freeze, winning 5-0 with Farrell scoring two goals in the second half of the game.

“I used to be able to beat (Farrell and her older brother),” Terrance said, “they don’t even ask me to play anymore.”

The New England Tournament will be held in Manchester, N.H., on March 26 through 28.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.