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My daughter started playing hockey in 2002-2003 at age 6. She played in a boys Mighty Mite program and has stayed with boys Mite and Squirt teams until this year (she'll be a 2nd year U10 now). There were 8 or 9 girls involved in her Mighty Mite group--I think 5 quit hockey after that year. The next year, 2003-2004, our association started a U8 program and attracted over 40 girls. Now our U10 program has 45 kids and the U8 has even more than that. I believe many associations started U8 programs around the same time.
What I'm wondering is this: Is there going to be a big leap forward in the quality of girl's HS hockey when this class of girls reaches high school?
The reason I bring this up is because it's clear that there are girls playing HS varsity hockey now who may have started skating when they were 9 or 10, and maybe didn't play hockey until U12. 5 and 6 years ago, there might have been varsity players who didn't play organized hockey until high school. (Remember Darwitz and Wendell going end-to-end around all 5 opponents at will in the state tournaments?) I would imagine in 7 years that every player on a varsity team will have been playing hockey since age 5 or 6. And the competition will be stiff all the way from U8 to varsity. Up until now the improvement overall in girls' hockey has been gradual--but with the explosion in numbers at U8 4 years ago, I wonder if there will be a noticeable 'jump' in the near future.
I'm not sure the top players will be better than in the past, since the Darwitzes and Wendells and Brodts and Curtins played in boys' programs with tough competition anyway, but the 15th player on each varsity team should theoretically be much more advanced 6 years from now than today.
I'm not sure this makes sense or not, or maybe this is just taken for granted by those in the know. Anyway, I'd like to see what others think who know way more about this than I do.

I would agree that the quality should go up with the quantity. What we may actually see though may be counter-intuitive. Instead of the quality going up for all, it should be obvious that HS programs that didn't start U8 as early as others in youth will be even further behind.

I don't want to sound negative, I just want to point out that some teams will continue to struggle until which time their large numbers move up through the ranks. By the time they get to the top, many other programs will have been at that level for a while in theory.

I think that we're still a long ways away from parity on par with the boys, but the U8 initiative is a strong step in that right direction.

Additionally, we need to continue to fight the "only boys play hockey" stereotype even though the hardest part of this battle was fought by the pioneers many years ago to get us to where were at now. We just can't take this for granted though. We have to keep working at it.

I don't believe there will be any "great leaps" ever again in girls hockey. Instead, the growth of numbers will provide a more important phenomenon...consistent sustainable growth of quality and depth.

Every now and then a very talented group will come along like the forwards from the class of 2006, but that will be more a factor of great talent and not large numbers.