University Park, Pa.- Wednesday marked the annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day in the United States, and the importance of the movement is not lost on both players and coaches from the women's hockey team.
Both Mikayla Lantto (Palmer, Alaska) and Julie Gough (Newcastle, Ontario) know the significance of playing at the Division I level and the example they can set for girls who hope to do the same.
"For younger kids, it can be inspiring for other young girls, the ones that come to our games, that there actually is a future for women's hockey," Gough said. "I think that's really cool to be able to set an example for the other girls even walking around the rink at night when we leave practice, they're all running around and it's just cool to see."
With head coach Jeff Kampersal, and assistant coaches Allison Coomey and Celeste Brown, the team has both male and female coaches that gives the team both a balance and perspective in leadership.
"I always feel it's important to have a women representative on a women's team," Coomey said.
"Just having somebody you can reach out to if you don't feel comfortable going to a male, it's huge. For them to see women coaching and if it's something they aspire to do, to have to have the ability to see somebody in that role, it gives them more of an opportunity to know that it's possible."
The women's hockey universe remains a close-knit community, something that Coomey is hoping will continue to draw interest towards the team.
"The women's hockey world is pretty small," Coomey said. "We always want to get exposure for our game and get kids interested. We're having a postgame skate after our game on Saturday and I know just personally, knowing people in the community, bringing their kids here and seeing our student-athletes, it gives them the opportunity to see what can be, if it's something they're interested in."
In addition to seeing women in coaching roles within the sport, Lantto thinks that girls in central Pennsylvania who watch them play at Pegula inspires hope that they can play Division I hockey as well.
"I think it's just seeing us around shows that there's more girls that can reach that stage and it's happening more often," Lantto said. "I think it's becoming more of a trend and more opportunities for girls to do these kinds of things and dream of playing Division I hockey."
For Lantto, it was as simple as growing up in a small town that played a big part in her hockey identity, even playing on boys teams in Alaska.
"I lived in a really small town and I grew up going to school with all those guys, playing with them my entire life," Lantto said. "I think everyone was just really close, and I would hang out with the guys because I lived an hour away so I would hang out at their houses, so I don't think it was a big deal for me. I think they were all pretty accepting, which was really cool."
Playing against or on boys teams is not uncommon at the younger levels of youth hockey, and Coomey thinks it can help when it comes to on-ice decision-making.
"You definitely have to get your head up a little bit and make decisions quicker at that pace," Coomey said. "I think probably the biggest thing is just trying to anticipate what you're going to do with the puck, and what move you're going to make next happens a little bit quicker."
While playing with the boys may have helped on ice, the expansion of the women's game has been huge in the last 20 years, something Kampersal has seen first-hand.
This week he thought back to when he first entered the collegiate women's hockey coaching ranks, and just how small the sport was at the Division I level when he started in the 1990s.
"I was very fortunate to sort of get into my position at Princeton, three years out of college," Kampersal said. "I was one of the first, I'd say, male pioneers. So, in those days, we'd have coaches meetings and probably 8-10 people sitting around a table to now, there are hundreds of coaches, and a huge female presence."
"I think since the 1998 Olympics, the interest in the sport has kind of exploded," he added. "I'm glad to see where it has come from then to now and having as many teams as the sport does, with a new league just you know sprouting up more colleges that are thinking about women's ice hockey and adding teams."
The recent increase in popularity comes in an era where the most prominent players in the sport are starring on the Olympic stage every four years. While professional options could still improve vastly, Coomey knows that the pedestal the sport sits on during Olympic years will only continue to help grow the sport.
"I think what they're doing now, at the grassroots of trying to promote that hockey is for everyone, creating those situations is great just to get exposure," Coomey said. "Obviously, the U.S. team winning gold was huge for the growth of hockey in America, and you didn't realize it until it happened. So, that was really neat to see, especially having watched over the years and Canada winning and coming back home. Once you win that gold medal, a lot of people see your sport, a little bit differently."
