Four years ago, Sjodin Fedikovich went to an open skate session at an ice rink in Newington to escape the summer heat. Today, the 12-year-old resident of Niantic and her family have embraced the sport of ice hockey.

“Me and my brother wanted to do hockey after that because it was really fun skating around,” she said. “I like hockey better than figure skating because I’m not a dancer kind of person.”

Sjodin currently plays with the Shoreline Sharks, a nonprofit hockey league based in East Haven that offers instructional and competitive hockey programs for girls age 3-19. The organization, which has players coming from as far as Stratford and Cheshire, is the largest girl’s hockey program in southern Connecticut.

Both Sjodin and her younger brother Derrick play ice hockey on teams out of the Patsy DiLungo Ice Rink in East Haven. She said she originally started with a league in Northford, but she switched to the Shoreline Sharks because they have all-girls teams. She currently plays defense with the U12 Green Sharks.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you don’t seem like the kind of person to play hockey,’ or ‘Oh, you seem too nice and gentle,’” she said. When she played on a spring league, her all-girls team faced boys’ teams, and she said it was fun to play against the boys.

Sjodin’s father Mike said ice hockey is a significant time commitment, especially with children on different teams, but the sport has a tight-knit community.

“The people who do it are there for their kids,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Twice a week, Sjodin goes straight from school to practice in East Haven, doing her homework and eating dinner in the car on the ride over. Games are usually on the weekends in the mornings, and tournaments are often on holiday weekends or school vacations. Because of the popularity of the sport in the New Haven and Fairfield areas and in Massachusetts, many towns have their own rinks, but Mike said rink time for the Sharks and other teams varies because high school teams have priority.

He said hockey isn’t as popular in southeastern Connecticut because there aren’t as many rinks, and it’s especially difficult to get ice time at the rink at Connecticut College. High school teams here are created with players from multiple districts.

Sjodin, currently a seventh-grader at Williams School in New London, also runs track, and she said it can be hard to choose between the two sports if she has events scheduled on the same day.

“I just like the game and I just like to be on the ice playing,” she said. “It just feels really cool, like I can ice skate and play hockey.”

The Shoreline Sharks offer programs in the fall at ice rink in East Haven for new skaters to learn how to skate and play hockey. The SandSharks program is open to girls and boys age 3 to 11, and the Sharks developmental program is open to girls age 12 and older. For more information about the program, contact the league at info@shorelinesharkshockey.com.

a.hutchinson@theday.com