History of women's ice hockey in the United States facts for kids

Gold-medalist USA Women's Hockey at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

The history of women's ice hockey in the United States began a long time ago, in the early 1900s. Back in the 1920s, a team called the Seattle Vamps played in different hockey games. In 1916, the United States even hosted an international hockey tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. This event featured women's teams from both Canada and America.

College Hockey Takes Off: AWCHA and NCAA

In the 1997–98 school year, a new group called the American Women's College Hockey Alliance (AWCHA) started. This program helped organize and grow college women's ice hockey teams. It also worked to make women's hockey popular at all levels of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

The first AWCHA Division I National Ice Hockey Championship was held in March 1998. The New Hampshire Wildcats won this big game, beating the Brown Bears 4–1. They became the first official national champions in women's college ice hockey. Later, the NCAA took over. In August 2000, the NCAA announced it would hold its own Division I Women's Ice Hockey National Championship. The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs won the very first NCAA championship on March 25, 2001. They beat the St. Lawrence Skating Saints 4–2.

Exciting College Games and Milestones

• February 28, 2010: The RPI Engineers women's ice hockey team made NCAA history! They won a game against Quinnipiac 2–1, but it took five extra periods (overtimes). This became the longest college hockey game ever in NCAA history. Laura Gersten scored the winning goal in the fifth overtime.

Playing Hockey Outdoors

Women's college hockey has even been played outdoors!

• January 8, 2010: Fenway Park in Boston, a famous baseball stadium, hosted a special hockey event. The New Hampshire Wildcats played against the Northeastern Huskies. This was the first outdoor women's hockey game ever! Northeastern started strong, leading 2–0, but New Hampshire came back to win 5–3.
• February 6, 2010: The Wisconsin Badgers played the Bemidji State Beavers outdoors at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers won 6–1 in front of 8,263 fans, which was a record for a women's hockey game.

Ivy League Women's Hockey History

The Ivy League schools also played a big part in women's hockey. In 1964, a coach at Brown University helped Nancy Schieffelin, a skilled player, join a team practice. She dressed in a full uniform so no one would know she was a girl. A year later, Brown University started the first women's ice hockey program. The team was called the Pembroke Pandas. They had to borrow equipment and even sold hockey rule sheets at men's games to raise money. In February 1966, the Pandas played their first game. They lost 4–1 to the Walpole Brooms.

The Cornell women's hockey program began in 1971. Their first game was a 4–3 win over Scarborough in 1972. Yale University started its women's ice hockey program on December 9, 1975. They won their first game 5–3 against Choate-Rosemary Hall. Two years later, Yale's team became an official varsity sport.

In 1976, Brown hosted the first Ivy League women's ice hockey tournament. Cornell, Princeton, and Yale also competed, and Cornell won. Dartmouth College welcomed women's ice hockey on January 7, 1978. They beat Middlebury 6–5. The Harvard Crimson team started in the 1978–79 season. Their first game was a tough 17–0 loss to the Providence Friars.

In 1998–99, the Harvard Crimson had an amazing season, winning 33 games and losing only one. They won 30 games in a row to finish the season! The last game of that streak was a 6–5 overtime victory against the New Hampshire Wildcats, which won them the AWCHA national championship.

Ivy League Players' Achievements

Ivy League players have achieved a lot in hockey.

• In 1987, Mollie Marcoux-Samaan joined the Princeton Tigers. She was a star in both hockey and soccer.
• In 1990, Judy Parish Oberting from Dartmouth was chosen for the first U.S. National Team. This team played in the 1990 IIHF Women's World Championship.
• In 1998, Laurie Belliveau of Yale and Sarah Hood of Dartmouth were the first Ivy League women's hockey players to be named first team All-Americans.
• During the 2003–04 season, Nicole Corriero of Harvard set an NCAA record by scoring 59 goals in one season.
• On January 18, 2003, Harvard beat the Boston College Eagles women's ice hockey team 17–2. This was the largest win difference in NCAA history!
• Jennifer Botterill set an NCAA record with 10 points in one game on January 28, 2003. Nicole Corriero tied this record later that year.

Professional Women's Hockey Leagues

For a long time, there wasn't a professional league in North America that paid women hockey players. But that changed!

National Women's Hockey League (NWHL)

The National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) started in 2015 with four teams. It was the first women's professional hockey league to pay its players. Before this, the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) only paid bonuses, not salaries. The NWHL paid players a minimum of $10,000 per season. They also got 15% of the money from their jersey sales. The league grew, adding the Minnesota Whitecaps in 2018 and a Toronto team in 2020. Teams played for the Isobel Cup, named after Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, whose father donated the famous Stanley Cup.

Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA)

In May 2019, the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) was formed. This happened after the CWHL closed down and players were not happy with the NWHL's pay. Even though the NWHL paid players, it wasn't enough to live on. The PWHPA wanted to create a better, more stable professional league for women's hockey. They wanted to make sure players had good pay, health insurance, and support for training young female players. Many top players joined the PWHPA and boycotted the NWHL.

The PWHPA players decided to play against each other in a series of games called the "Dream Gap Tour." This tour aimed to show the difference in opportunities between men's and women's professional hockey.

Premier Hockey Federation (PHF)

In September 2021, the NWHL changed its name to the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). They also made big changes, like allowing teams to be owned by private groups. The team salary caps (the total amount teams could spend on player salaries) were doubled. In January 2022, the league announced that the salary cap would more than double again to $750,000 per team for the 2022–23 season. Players would also get full healthcare benefits. By December 2022, the salary cap for the 2023–24 season was set at $1.5 million per team! This was a huge increase, showing how much the league was growing.

Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL)

On June 30, 2023, the PHF was sold to a new group. This meant all PHF player contracts were canceled. Players had to sign new contracts or enter a draft for the new league. On August 29, 2023, the new league was announced as the PWHL. It started with six teams in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, New York, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The first PWHL game was played on January 1, 2024, between New York and Toronto.

Famous Women's Hockey Teams

Many teams have made a mark in women's ice hockey history.

Connecticut Polar Bears

The Connecticut Polar Bears are a hockey league for girls under 19 in Connecticut. Many players from the Polar Bears have gone on to play college hockey. In 1985, Maurice FitzMaurice's daughter, Marnie, wanted to play hockey with other girls. So, FitzMaurice and other fathers started a program, which became the Connecticut Polar Bears. It's the only all-girls ice hockey program in Connecticut.

The Polar Bears have won 10 national championships! They have also produced many Olympic players, including Julie Chu, Hilary Knight, and Angela Ruggiero.

Minnesota Whitecaps

The Minnesota Whitecaps are a very successful team. In 2010, they became the first U.S. team to win the Clarkson Cup, a major championship. In 2019, after joining the NWHL, the Whitecaps became the only team to win both the Clarkson Cup and the Isobel Cup!

Seattle Vamps

As early as 1916, there were talks of starting a women's hockey league in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. In February 1921, a women's international championship series was announced. The three teams competing were the Vancouver Amazons, Victoria Kewpies, and Seattle Vamps. On February 21, 1921, the Seattle Vamps played the Vancouver Amazons and lost 5–0. Two days later, the Vamps beat a team from the University of British Columbia. Jerry Reed scored three goals in that game for the Vamps. The Seattle Vamps stopped playing after the 1921 season.

Key Moments in Women's Hockey History

Here are some important dates in the history of women's ice hockey in the U.S.:

• 1971: The first known girls' youth hockey program in Minnesota started.
• 1980: USA Hockey hosted the first national championships for girls' pee wee and midget divisions.
• 1981: Senior women were included in USA Hockey's National Championships.
• 1993: Women's hockey was part of the U.S. Olympic Festival for the first time. The U.S. women's team won gold against Canada.
• 1994: The third IIHF Women's World Championship was held in the United States for the first time in Lake Placid, New York.
• 1995: Apple Valley High School became the first Minnesota girls' state high school champion.
• 1998: The USA Women's Hockey Team won the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. This was the first time women's ice hockey was an Olympic sport! The U.S. team beat Canada 3–1.
• 2018: The USA Women's Hockey Team won gold again at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, beating Canada 3–2 in a shootout.

Important People in Women's Hockey

Many individuals have helped shape women's ice hockey.

• Laura Stamm was a power skating instructor in the 1970s and 1980s for several NHL teams.
• Bella Hartman and Erin Nohl were members of the United States national team in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• On October 30, 1993, goaltender Erin Whitten made history. She became the first woman to win a professional hockey game, playing for the Toledo Storm. In 1994, she received the first-ever USA Hockey Women's Hockey Player of the Year Award.
• Lynn Olson is known as the "godmother" of girls' and women's hockey in Minnesota. She helped Minnesota become the first state to make girls' hockey a high school varsity sport in 1994.
• Laura Halldorson coached the Minnesota Golden Gophers women's ice hockey program to an NCAA title in 2004.
• The late Patty Kazmaier played for the Princeton Tigers. A special award for the best player in women's college hockey is named in her honor.
• On September 13, 2011, Buffalo native Lexi Peters became the first female ice hockey player to appear in an EA Sports NHL Hockey video game, in EA Sports NHL 12. She wrote a letter to the company asking why there were no female characters.

Women's Hockey in Minnesota

Minnesota has been a leader in girls' and women's hockey. In 1994, the Minnesota State High School League decided to make girls' ice hockey an official high school sport. Minnesota was the first state in the U.S. to do this! On March 25, 1995, Apple Valley High School won the first Minnesota girls' state high school championship.

The number of girls' varsity teams in Minnesota grew a lot. From 1994 to 2002, it went from 24 teams to 125 teams. More and more girls started playing hockey. In 1994, there were 1,863 girls playing organized hockey outside of school. By 2002, that number jumped to 6,856!

Special Awards in Women's Hockey

There are many awards that celebrate excellence in women's ice hockey.

Sarah Devens Award

The Sarah Devens Award started in 1996. It's given to a college player who shows great sportsmanship and leadership. The award is named after Sarah Devens, a Dartmouth player who passed away in 1995. Kathryn Waldo was the first winner. She played for Northeastern and achieved 106 points despite having cystic fibrosis.

Minnesota Ms. Hockey Award

This award is given each year to the best high school senior girl ice hockey player in Minnesota. It recognizes outstanding talent and leadership.

Patty Kazmaier Award

The Patty Kazmaier Award is one of the most important awards in women's college hockey. It's given to the best player in NCAA Division I women's ice hockey each year. It's named after Patty Kazmaier, a former Princeton player.

Joe Burke Award

The Joe Burke Award started in 1994. It's given to someone who has greatly supported and helped women's ice hockey grow. Joe Burke was a huge fan of women's hockey.

Laura Hurd Award

The Laura Hurd Award is given to the best NCAA Division III Women's Ice Hockey Player of the Year. It's named after Laura Hurd, a star player from Elmira College.

Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year Award

This award recognizes the top female ice hockey player in the United States each year.

International Hockey Tournaments in the U.S.

The United States has hosted many international women's ice hockey tournaments.

Amazing Firsts in Women's Hockey

• January 28, 2005: Angela Ruggiero played for the Tulsa Oilers in a professional game. She was the first woman to play in a regular season professional hockey game in the U.S. in a position other than goalie. Her brother also played for the Oilers, making them the first brother-sister pair to play professionally at the same time.
• 2009: Alex Rigsby was the first female player to be drafted by the United States Hockey League.

Growth of Women's Hockey Players

The number of women playing ice hockey in the U.S. has grown a lot over the years:

• 1990–91: About 2,700 women played ice hockey.
• 1993–94: The number increased to 6,300.
• 1997–98: There were 23,010 female players.
• 1998: Women's ice hockey became an Olympic sport, and the U.S. women won gold!
• 2005: The number of U.S. female hockey players reached 52,469.
• 2009–2010: There were 61,612 female players.
• 2014–15: The number grew to 69,744 female players.
• By 2018, nearly 200,000 women were playing hockey around the world!

See also

• Title IX
• National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship