A young group of Wareham kids are proving you don't need official status and professional equipment to start your own sports league.

The Agawam Lake Street Hockey League is a youth-run, start-up league that coordinates street hockey games in the summer and winter.

"For someone who doesn't play hockey for real, it's real fun," said Andrew Thompson, a 13-year-old Wareham Middle School student who joined soon after the league started in the summer of 2011.

"I like it," he said. "Other than [us], I don't know other people that play street hockey."

The league was started by friends Alexander Atkinson, Thomas Cummings, Zach Moretti, and Joe Fisher, said Thompson.

Thompson joined once he learned about the team through Facebook. He had only recently gotten interested in the sport.

"I started liking hockey three months before the Bruins won the Stanley Cup" in 2011, Thompson said. "I was going over to my friend's house. His brother and his father would watch a lot of the Bruins games. ... I'd probably hear the first three words of their conversation and then zone out."

The league held its first game in the parking lot near the Recycling Center in the summer of 2011.

Thompson enjoyed his experience so much that after the first summer game, he participated in a beginners' program at Tabor Academy to improve his skills.

"It's fast-paced. I can't play baseball myself. I don't know how to throw a ball, honestly. But I know how to shoot a puck," Thompson said.

The league members also held a winter game, called the "Winter Classic," at the tennis courts on Carver Road in West Wareham.

Their most recent game was held on July 13. Only nine people showed up to the game, Thompson said, though more were invited.

Despite the low turnout, the players broke out into two teams — the "Mustangs" and the "Grizzlies" — and started playing.

Since the Mustangs did not have a goalie, they hung a mat painted with a fake goalie over the net. There were five holes in the mat: one in each of the four corners, and one in between the goalie's legs.

Even with the crude equipment, the players still had fun.

"I, myself, loved it," said Thompson, though he acknowledged that there was room for the league to grow.

"We actually want to have 6-on-6 teams, not 4-on-3. And a playable goalie, not a mat that sits over the net," said Thompson. "We want to make it so we have more people so we can get more games. We want to actually have a season," he said.

In addition to more players, Thompson would also like to have players of all ages and hold practices between games, he said.

For now, the match-up of Thompson and the Agawam Lake Street Hockey League is a great fit. It may also be a sign of things to come.

"I found out a little bit after, my dad used to play in a street league when he was growing up. So I found that coincidental. It could have run through the genes somehow," Thompson said.

For more information about the league, search Facebook for "Agawam Lake Street Hockey League," and watch the league's Youtube videos. To join, call Andrew Thompson at 508-209-1245.