Afton Demster isn’t afraid of a little contact. In fact, the 15-year-old Niagara Falls sophomore, now in her second season on the school’s junior varsity boys hockey team, isn’t sure she agrees with the standard girls hockey rule that prohibits body checking.

She likes to mix it up a little.

Against a group of rough-and-tumble boys, though, Demster admits she keeps her head on a swivel.

“It’s a lot more fast-paced. And I have to be a lot more aware of my surroundings because there’s checking. So I’ve always got to be worried about that,” she said.

Demster’s father, Al, feels the same way. Although he’s watched his daughter and friends Elaina Velky and Hannah Stewart come up though the girls hockey ranks together on the Niagara County Coyotes, his concerns have grown in recent years as boys have gotten bigger and faster.

That’s why he’s spearheading a group hoping to get a combined girls hockey team for those interested from Niagara Falls, Niagara-Wheatfield, Grand Island and Lewiston-Porter high schools. Demster said he’s contacted parents, potential players and administrators about potentially fielding a team as soon as next season.

He’s preparing to present his case to the Niagara Falls School Board Thursday night, expecting players and parents to attend in support. The plan is to get the same group to attend meetings for all four school boards.

Teams are expected to compete from Williamsville, Ken-Ton, a combined Monsignor Martin squad, Amherst/Sweet Home, and West Seneca/Lancaster next season, and Al Demster said he thinks the proposal has a “90 percent chance” of getting approved by Niagara Falls. If not today, then soon.

“It’s a blooming thing,” Demster said. “It looks really good right now. It feels like the climate now is right.”

The group needs help playing the costs, which Demster estimates at more than $25,000 per season, but he believes a split approach between the four schools will help keep the price tag reasonable for each school.

And his daughter believes a slow push will eventually get the team formed.

“I saw that other schools were doing it and I thought why not us? I mean, the guys have a Federation team, why can’t we?” she said. “It’d be great if they say yes, but even if they say no, we’ll try again next year. I think this is our starting point. We’re going to try to go to all the schools and present our case to each.”

Mark DiFilippo is the athletic director at Niagara-Wheatfield High School and runs the boys varsity Federation, which recently went through a major expansion, said he likes the idea of a girls Federation, but thinks the best path to take for the group is through the club ranks. Club teams pay for their own ice time, yet don’t have the same rules to follow as varsity sports.

“It would make more sense to see this successful as a club first,” DiFilippo said. “It’s a blind shot. You don’t know. You make a commitment to something and it doesn’t work, can’t take it back. We haven’t seen the level of play. The thing that frightens us is there are a lot of unknowns. The boys team started as club and as school administrators we could follow how they progressed.”

Other potential concerns are recent budget cuts and more pressure on a local ice schedule that’s already spread thin.

“We’re having a difficult time with ice time as it is,” DiFilippo said. “Practices aren’t too bad, but to find game ice that’s conducive for school kids, and not 10 p.m., it’s been an issue.

“It’d be a great thing to happen, but it takes time, it doesn’t just happen overnight,” he added. “It’s taken 20 years for the boys Federation to get to where it is now.”

Still, those like Velky, a sophomore who hasn’t played with the boys, hope to get the measure passed quickly. Velky said she was a skater for years before finding her place in hockey five years ago.

“I needed a contact sport. I love that you can get all of your anger out,” Velky said. “It’s just such a good outlet. I wanted to play for the JV boys team, but it’s so rough and I’ve had a couple concussions so my parents didn’t want me to risk it. To hear about this, though, I was so excited.”