The Memorial Day weekend hockey tournament at The Cube includes a unique element this year: There are several divisions exclusively for girls teams, including the out-of-state teams that provided emotional support to the Santa Clarita Lady Flyers after the tragic crash of a team van en route to a January tournament in Colorado.
From May 21 to 25, the Spring Hockey Cup will offer four guaranteed games for each of the girls’ teams, ranging from divisions 10B to 16AA.
The teams that are expected to play include those who assisted and supported the Lady Flyers after January’s crash in Colorado, which claimed the life of Manny Lorenzana, the father of one of the girls on the team.
“This is a good tournament that we were able to put together for the 12UAA girls, the 14UAA and the 16UAA girls’ teams from all different states — even the ones from Colorado are coming down to Santa Clarita for the first-ever girls’ hockey tournament that The Cube is hosting,” said Todd Stelnick, director of girls hockey for the SC Lady Flyers. “[This was arranged] to support all the girls who are trying to move forward with hockey and overall empower women to play. So now that other girls can see this in Santa Clarita, hopefully this will interest more girls in playing hockey in the future.”
With this being the first girls’ tournament held in Santa Clarita, Stelnick is pleased to find more awareness regarding girls’ hockey.
“It’s a great thing because a lot of girls love it — there’s just a lot more awareness out there for girls’ hockey coming to the United States,” Stelnick said. “It’s really nice to see some of the teams that went through the experience in Colorado coming back to support us by playing in the tournament. It feels good to see what we’reable to do locally, as well. Getting the girls back together is great.”
Across all divisions for boys and girls, this is the Valencia rink’s largest spring tournament to date, with a total of 59 teams competing in 11 divisions, according to a news release from the city of Santa Clarita.
Boys’ and girls’ teams will travel from across California and neighboring states to compete, including teams from Santa Clarita, Panorama City, Burbank, Santa Barbara, El Segundo, Bakersfield, Fresno, Livermore/Dublin, Vacaville, Las Vegas, Utah and Colorado.
For more information and for the tournament schedule, visit: www.thecubesantaclarita.com/springcup2026.
