SHUTOUT in Hamburg

Thinking back, Mike Musty can still see her. Machala was 4 years old the first time she skated on the 40-by-80 rink in their backyard in Hamburg. Musty and his son, Quentin, who was 7, could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw her zipping effortlessly across the ice that day.

“Oh, she skated way better than Quentin!” Mike recalled. ‘He couldn’t believe it. I should have videoed it. It was hilarious. He was jealous. I didn’t know how she was going to skate her first time out. He had this look on his face, like ‘How can she skate so good?’ It was hilarious. She was a skilled skater.”

Quentin was no slouch, even at 7. He grew up to become one of the best youth hockey players ever in Western New York, the first non-Canadian to go first in the OHL draft. In 2023, the Sharks took him 26th overall in the NHL draft, the highest any local kid had gone since Patrick Kane went No. 1 in 2007.

Clearly, his little sister had some talent, too. Mike put Machala in the same youth hockey organization as Quentin in West Seneca, where she played forward on a boys’ team for a year. She held her own, but had other ideas. Strong-willed, even at such a young age, she knew she didn’t want to score goals, but prevent them.

“She kind of made a statement: ‘I never want to be a skater again’,” Mike said. “I didn’t resist. I thought if I didn’t let her, she might quit hockey.”

Machala had one compelling reason to become a goalie. She wanted to be like her dad, who was an accomplished high school goalie in his day before giving up the game to play volleyball.

“I’ve always looked up to my dad,” said Machala, now the No. 1 goalie for the Hamburg boys’ team. “So I was like, ‘I want to be a goalie.’ He is my biggest hero.”

The girl who had been such a natural skater did not take so quickly to playing between the pipes.

“Oh, no! I was definitely not a natural,” she said. “I catch with my right, which is very abnormal. That made it very hard to find equipment when I got started. ”Her dad added to the difficulty at first by making her play with her other hand, the traditional way. Mike told her he wasn’t going to buy her equipment until he was certain she really loved playing goal. It didn’t take long.

“She’s never thought about playing out since then,” Mike said. “She loves the position, loves the way it’s evolved. She loves to study it.”

Machala, now 16, never looked back. She got the right equipment, and she kept getting better. She became one of the best youth goalies in the area, playing almost exclusively with the boys. She played modified for Hamburg in seventh grade, but left for other opportunities. Musty played for the Buffalo Regals last season.

This year, Machala tried out for the Hamburg boys as a junior. Coach John McFall, who had known her for years and tried to get her as a sophomore was thrilled. He knew she was good enough to be his No. 1 goalie.

Her father wasn’t so keen on her playing high school hockey. Machala is also playing for the Stoney Creek Sabres, a women’s U22 team that plays in the OWHL. That involves three trips a week to Hamilton. Combined with the high school team, Mike felt that was an awful lot of hockey.

“She fought me tooth and nail about playing high school,” he said. “She said ‘I’m going to anyway’. I said, ‘OK, you stubborn little …  A kid in the neighborhood plays. Picks her up every morning at 5 o’clock for early practice, She wanted to play with the guys. She thinks it’s going to make her better.”

Playing with the boys at Hamburg was an adjustment at first. But the greater adjustment was playing on a team of females for the first time in Canada.

“It took awhile,” said Mike, who has coached his daughter from the start and is still Machala’s goalie coach at Stoney Creek. “I think her first practice, she cried. She was like, ‘How am I going to get better? The guys shoot so much harder.’ It’s a different kind of challenge.”

But Machala made the transition, and she’s going to be playing a lot of women’s hockey in the coming years. Early this fall, she committed to play for the women’s team at Merrimack College, a Division I program that competes in Hockey East with the likes of Boston College and Boston University.

Erin Hamlen, the head coach at Merrimack, was a goalie for the U.S. women’s national team in the 1990s and one of the first women’s to play professional hockey. In 1993, she became the first woman goaltender to win a game for a pro hockey team when she did it for Toledo of the East Coast Hockey League.

“She is such a great coach,” said Machala, who also plays softball and is a long-time member of the Diamond Girls. "She did a great job recruiting me I’m really happy to be there. She’s been a big influence. She’s supported me in everything. I love having a goalie as a coach.”

Mike Musty said it felt like fate. Hamlen is from Glens Falls, not far from where his wife, Missy, grew up in Lake George. When they met on a recruiting trip, they found they had mutual friends. And Hamlen seemed like the coach you might have invented to coach Machala.

“First of all, she’s a left-handed goalie,” Mike said. “She was a U.S. Olympian. She was the first woman to win a men’s pro game. You’re like, ‘This woman, she’s a 52-year-old version of Machala’. This is who she gets to play for.

“I was hoping that Machala looked at it the same way. We finally got to Merrimack and had dinner. You always try to gauge how your kid’s feeling by the end of the dinner. She was like, ‘I think we should commit.’ I’m like what? She said ‘I’m good, I don’t think we have to visit any other schools’.”

Machala would love to play on the women’s national team some day, like Hamlen. She wanted to try out for a U.S. team last year but broke her foot. She also aspires to play in the growing women’s pro hockey league. That would be something for the Musty family, having both kids in the pro ranks.

But that’s far down the road. For now, it’s about Machala balancing her women’s team in Stoney Creek with the boys’ squad at Hamburg High. McFall said Musty’s OWHL obligations will limit her to being available for about 12 of Hamburg’s 20 regular-season games. He said Musty will need to play at least six games to qualify for the high school post-season.

Heading into Wednesday’s game at Amherst, the Bulldogs were 5-3-1 in ECIC II of the Federation. They’re 4-0 with Machala in net. She has a 3.00 goals-against and .900 save percentage. Last Friday, she made 32 saves in a 4-0 home victory over Williamsville South, which came in with a 7-1 record.

“She rounds us off,” McFall said. “That gives us a fighting chance.”

Musty describes herself as an “aggressive” goalie, and she does like to roam from the net and challenge shooters. She is also a terrific fundamental player, who plays angles well, squares up to shooters and is quick on her skates.

“I am very aggressive,” she said after the shutout, “and while that might not always be the best thing for a goalie I think that’s one of my strongest things on the ice, always being aggressive and wanting to stop that puck, no matter what happens. It’s definitely a big advantage being able to play the puck — even though I’m obviously not as strong as the guys,”

She’s plenty big in net, as far as her teammates are concerned. The Hamburg guys played well in front of her during the shutout, like a bunch of boys trying to shield their kid sister from danger. It’s a big deal, having a girl play with the boys, but they never had doubts that Musty would be equal to the challenge.

“Not at all,” said senior defenseman and captain Shane Wood. “I grew up playing with her. No one had any doubts. We knew how solid she is back there.”

Machala said she played with many of the Bulldogs in the youth ranks and modified, so they’re accustomed to having her around. She said it was a little weird at first, but they’ve grown as a team. Winning certainly helps.

“I love this team,” she said. “From first practice, first tryout, I was like, ‘Wow, we’ve got some really good talented, hard working kids on this team’. I really enjoy playing with them. They’re all great teammates, great people. On the ice, it’s so much fun. They’re always there for me, they always defend me.”

McFall said it’ll be a rough road in the section, but there could be something special about this year’s team. Noah Nahrebeski, who will play college lacrosse at Albany next year, opted to have more fun as a senior by playing hockey for Hamburg High instead of the Junior Sabres.

They also have an upgrade in net. You could sense the players’ admiration for Musty when the clock hit zero against Will South, giving Machala her first shutout as a high school goalie. You could barely see her, all of 5-foot-6, amid the swirl of joyful players who congratulated her outside the crease.

“It’s a huge deal having her back there,” Wood said. “We have her back more than anyone else, honestly,” Wood said.

It has to be a comfort to know she has their backs as well.

Quentin and Machala

Quentin and Machala

Goaltending coach John Cullen, Machala and Quentin

Pics Courtesy of Mike Musty