The Golden Girls
New Jersey — The Team NJ U11 Girls have completed a remarkable three-year championship run at the USA Ball Hockey Future Stars Invitational, capturing gold in 2024, 2025 and 2026 while establishing a level of sustained success that extends far beyond any single group of players.
The run began in 2024, when a 19-player Team NJ roster finished 4-1 and outscored its opponents 30-4. New Jersey closed the tournament with a 6-2 championship-game victory over Pennsylvania, earning the first gold medal of what would become a three-year championship run.
A year later, Team NJ returned with a dramatically different roster. Only eight players returned from the 2024 championship team, while 12 new players joined the group. After opening the tournament with a narrow 1-0 loss to Massachusetts, New Jersey responded by winning four consecutive games. A 3-2 victory over Massachusetts in the championship game gave Team NJ its second consecutive Future Stars gold medal.
The roster changed significantly again in 2026. Eight players returned from the previous year’s championship team, while nine newcomers joined the group. This time, however, Team NJ never lost. The U11 Girls went a perfect 5-0, finding the back of the net 24 times while allowing just four goals throughout the entire tournament. In the championship game, New Jersey once again faced Massachusetts and earned a dramatic 2-1 overtime victory, completing the three-peat. While “team first” concept is emphasized in the locker-room, it is hard to overlook one in particular player’s performance in Utica this summer. Future Stars overall scoring leader, Hayley Hoover, put together a 16-point dominating performance.
Across the three tournaments, Team NJ compiled a 13-2 overall record, scored 68 goals, allowed only 14, and captured three consecutive gold medals. But perhaps the statistic that best tells the story is 40. Forty different players contributed to those championships. Of those 40 players, MVP Arabella Feeney and Captain Harper Sleeter were the only two players to be part of all three teams. The significant turnover meant Team NJ could not simply rely on one dominant group of players progressing through the division together. Each season required returning players to take on new responsibilities, newcomers to quickly embrace the team’s expectations, and an entirely new group to develop the trust and chemistry necessary to compete at a championship level.
For Head Coach Ray Zola, that continuity has less to do with maintaining the same roster and more to do with maintaining the same standard. He told us, “Every year we lose players. Every year we bring in new ones. But our standard never changes. The girls buy into the team culture, trust the process, and play for something bigger than themselves. That’s why we keep winning.”
The three-year run also represents something larger than tournament results. It demonstrates what can happen when player development, preparation, commitment and team culture become expectations shared by everyone who enters a program.
“A dynasty isn’t built on one team. It’s built on a culture that develops everyone who wears the jersey,” Zola stressed. Over three years, the names on the roster changed, but the expectations and the outcomes have not.
