By BEN ROSE
"Girls," said nine-year-old Abigail Golda Hoffman, "have nothing in the head."
With this terse statement, the girl who played on a boys' hockey team for four months and was picked as "defenceman" for an all-star game, announced that she wants to stay in a boys' world.
As she skated in front of TV lights at Ravina Gardens, enjoying every minute of it, she was asked if she would like other girls to play hockey. "It's all right," she said, "as long as I don't have to play on a team with girls. Girls wouldn't be any good."
It was a swimming party arranged for Abigail and her teammates that helped to let the cat out of the bag.
"Abby was supposed to play in an all-star game for the benefit of crippled children at Scarboro arena on March 31," Mrs. Samuel Hoffman, Glendonwynne Rd., her mother said. "I was telephoned and told that after the game the whole team would go swimming to celebrate. I talked to my husband and we thought that after the game we would tell the others that Abby had a cold and couldn't go swimming. But then we realized that we couldn't keep the pretence up much longer."
Finally, when Abby had to re-submit a birth certificate to make her eligible for the all-star game, a flabbergasted coach and manager and disbelieving teammates realized the "boy" with the startling blue eyes was a girl. But she is going to continue to play for her team in the "Little THL" at a benefit for the league next Friday at Varsity arena and in the Scarboro game too. She also plays tomorrow (Saturday), at 6 p.m. in a regular league game. She wears No 6.
Joins Brownies
Abby has only one girl friend Susie Read because she likes the company of boys better "and besides there aren't any girls around here to play with." Her liking boys has one slight reservation: her brothers, Paul 14, and Muni, 11. "They're corkscrews," she said flatly.
With her crew cut, boyish features and long strides on the ice, it was hard to realize that it was a girl chasing a puck among the skirted, pirouetting youngsters learning figure skating at Ravina Thursday afternoon.
Her mother, the former Dorothy Medhurst supervisor of the nursery school at the YMHA, said she believes Abby's attitude is just a passing phase. "Right now she has a cupboard full of dresses that are never worn." Mrs. Hoffman said "The tears flow when we do convince her, once in a long while, to wear a dress on Sunday. She wears jeans all the time. But last year she wanted to join the Brownies so badly that, to the surprise of us all, she agreed to wear their uniform."
Skated When Three
Abby doesn't like any form of housework, and on the family's two-month camping trip every summer she is a "total loss" where the chores are concerned. "The only night she ever does dishes is when she's been to Brownies and she must do something like that as part of their program," her mother said.
Abby takes piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, and likes them very much, goes to the Junior Field Naturalists at the Royal Ontario Museum every month, takes private art classes three Saturdays a month, and belongs to the Lake-shore Swimming club. She learned her swimming when the family had a cottage at Caledon. "She can swim a mile and a half and used to go a lot more often before she developed this great liking for hockey." Mrs. Hoffman said Abby is in Grade 3 in a private school.
"When she did a lot of swimming, it was a utilitarian move to keep her hair cut short so it would dry fast in winter," her mother said.
Almost right across the road from the Hoffman house is a skating rink at Humberside collegiate where Abby first donned skates at the age of three. She started to carry a hockey stick when she was five.
Abby likes to go to Junior OHA games, but has never seen a pro contest, and as the fam-ily has no set, has never seen one on TV. She doesn't hear the hockey games on radio Saturday nights as she is either in bed or the radio isn't working.
"I think children should be out playing hockey, not watching it," Mrs. Hoffman said. "And any of these sports that are good for health and teaching fair play should be good for girls as well as boys."
Grateful to Coach
Mrs. Hoffman is grateful to "Bob" Bowden, one of the coaches in the Little HL who, she is sure, knew the true story all along. "His son plays on the same team as Muni, and both Muni and Paul have told their friends about Abby playing on a boys' team. Several times Mr. Bowden would come over and say, "That boy of your is quite a hockey player," and wink and smile when he said "boy." But he never gave the show away."
Abby's eventual ambition is to be a school teacher. Right now she would settle for a goal or two. "I did have one clean breakaway but I didn't score," she said ruefully. "I like to play defence the best because I can't rush fast enough."
"I defy anyone to pick her out as a girl when the team is on the ice," said coach Al Grossi. "She skates like a boy, plays aggressively, meets the players when they come in on defence. She hasn't got the speed to be a forward, but that's true of a lot of boys, too. She has improved a lot since the start of the season."
As the 15 boys -- and one girl -- on the team do their dressing at home and only don skates, sweaters and pads at Varsity Arena, there was no trouble in the dressing room. From now on she'll put her skates on in the office of Earl Graham, Little THL chairman.
For his part, Mr. Graham is hoping that the 4,500 seats at the arena will all be taken when Abby and her teammates play March 16, so the league, which supplies fun and exercise for 400 children, will be able to operate next year.
