Hi hockey fans, Trasher here.

I recently received an email from a long-time follower of our website. She commented about the 'genderization' of the names for the girls' teams in the scoreboard ticker, stating that it conveyed the fact that 'girls are second.' (Basically, putting a 'G' in front of the girls' team names.)

After a brief confab, the partners at WiPH agreed and we set out to rectify the situation.

A short aside: when we started WiPH, we started with just the boys, so all the 'good' names were used for them. It was easy and convenient to just stick the 'G' in front of the girls teams to incorporate them.

The naming convention that we will now use is for the girls' teams to show the team nickname. Examples are 'LYNX' for Metro Lynx, 'HRAIDR' for Hudson, 'WRHWKS' for Arrowhead. There are two teams named Lightning, three with Stars, and two with Raiders. In these cases, we differentiated by adding the team name (example, FCSTRS for Fox Cities Stars) to the front of the nickname.

We are limited to six characters, so there is that constraint that we have to deal with and work around.

At this time, we have not changed any boys' team names, but will look at that to see if it is necessary. For the most part, if not all, the boys' teams will be identified by the school, not the nickname. Examples are 'ONALAC' for Onalaska/LaCrosse and 'PINES' for Northland Pines.

The only thing we ask is for team administrators not to change any team names, short names, and nicknames on their team admin page.

We apologize for any confusion.