History of women's ice hockey in the United States

In 1997-98, the American Women's College Hockey Alliance debuted. It was a program funded through the USOC/NCAA Conference Grant Program. The AWCHA organized and developed activities with collegiate women's varsity ice hockey teams, and helped to promote women's ice hockey at all NCAA levels. The first AWCHA Division I National Ice Hockey Championship was held in March 1998. The New Hampshire Wildcats defeated the Brown Bears by a 4-1 score, to become the first recognized national champion in women's college ice hockey. In the 1999-2000 season, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) joined the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) as the second league in the nation to offer women's Division I competition.[1]

There were two more AWCHA National Championships and then the NCAA became involved. In August 2000, the NCAA announced it would hold its first Division I Women's Ice Hockey National Championship. The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs captured the first NCAA Division I Women's Ice Hockey Championship, defeating the St. Lawrence Skating Saints by a 4-2 tally on March 25, 2001.

In 1964, the Brown Bears men's coach Jim Fullerton arranged for Nancy Schieffelin to attend a team practice. She was an experienced player and came to the practice disguised in full uniform. A year later, Brown University had the first women's ice hockey program. The team was known as the Pembroke Pandas. The Pandas had to borrow equipment, and sell hockey rule sheets at the Bears men's games to raise money for equipment. In February 1966, the Pandas (Brown Bears) women's ice hockey team played their first game. Against the Walpole Brooms, the club lost by a 4-1 score.

The Cornell women's hockey program was started in 1971, but did not play its first game until 1972. It was a 4-3 victory over Scarborough. In 1972, they played eight games and lost four. The Big Red lost twice to the Brown Bears.

Yale University debuted its women's ice hockey program on December 9, 1975. Its first match was versus Choate-Rosemary Hall. The Bulldogs prevailed by a 5-3 tally. Two years later, the Bulldogs hockey program attained varsity status.[5] In 1976, Brown hosted the first ever Ivy League women's ice hockey tournament. The other competing schools were Cornell, Princeton and Yale. The Big Red won the tournament.

Dartmouth College welcomed women's ice hockey on January 7, 1978. The Big Green defeated Middlebury by a 6-5 score. The Big Green finished their inaugural season with 7 wins, 7 losses, and 1 tie. Against Ivy League teams, the Big Green were 1-3-1. In the 1978-79 season, the Harvard Crimson iced a women's team. Their first game was a 17-0 defeat at the hands of the Providence Friars. The next game was a 2-1 loss to the Yale Bulldogs.

The Harvard Crimson "iced" their first-ever regular season women's hockey team in the 1978-79 season. Their first game was a 17-0 defeat at the hands of the Providence Friars. In 1998-99, the Crimson finished with a record of 33-1. Of the 31 wins, the Crimson won 30 consecutive games to close the season. In the previous season, the Crimson had gone 14-16-0. The final game of that 30 game streak was a 6-5 overtime victory over the New Hampshire Wildcats in the AWCHA national championship game.

On November 24, 1979, the Princeton Tigers played their first varsity game against the University of Pennsylvania.[5] In winter of 1982, Princeton snapped the Cornell Big Red women's ice hockey program's string of six straight Ivy League titles.[5]

In 1998, the Patty Kazmaier Award was introduced,[6] named after former Princeton Tigers player Patty Kazmaier.

In 1998-99, the Harvard Crimson finished with a record of 33-1. Led by head coach Katey Stone, the Crimson proceeded to win the American Women's College Hockey Alliance national championship.[7]

• 1980: The Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (known today as USA Hockey) hosts the first National Championships for girls' pee wee and midget divisions. A team from Taylor, Michigan wins the inaugural pee wee tournament. A team from Wayzata, Minn., is the first girls' midget National Champion.
• 1981: Senior women are included in USA Hockey's National Championships. Assabet Valley, Massachusetts, wins the Senior A National Championship, while Cape Cod, Massachusetts, wins the Senior B crown.
• 1984: The Providence Friars women's hockey program wins the inaugural Eastern College Athletic Conference Women's Championship.
• 1993: Women's hockey is included at the U.S. Olympic Festival for the first time ever. The festival is held in San Antonio, Texas and the US women's team defeats Canada in a two-game series for the gold medal.
• 1994: The third IIHF Women's World Championship is held in the United States for the first time. The venue is Lake Placid, New York. Canada wins the gold medal game by a 6-3 mark against the U.S. Finland defeats China, 8-1, to finish third once again.
• 1995: On March 25, Apple Valley High School defeats the South St. Paul Packers, 2-0, to become the first Minnesota girls' state high school champion.
• 1995: The inaugural IIHF Pacific Rim Women's Hockey Championship, featuring the U.S., Canada, China and Japan, is held in San Jose, California. The Canadian team defeats the U.S. in an overtime shootout to win the gold medal.
• 1998: The USA Women's Hockey Team wins the gold medal against the Canada in the first ever Olympic women's ice hockey tournament at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The USA women defeated Canada 3-1.
• 2018: The USA Women's Hockey Team defeats Canada 3-2 in the shootout to win the gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

• Laura Stamm was a power skating instructor in the 1970s and 1980s for several NHL teams, including the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils and Los Angeles Kings.[22]
• Bella Hartman played for the University of New Hampshire Wildcats and was a member of the United States national team in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• Erin Nohl played for the Providence Friars and was a member of several U.S. national teams in the early 1990s.
• On Oct. 30, 1993, goaltender Erin Whitten made history by becoming the first woman to record a victory in a professional hockey game. As a member of the East Coast Hockey League's Toledo Storm, she posted a 6-5 win against the Dayton Bombers. In 1994 she received the first-ever USA Hockey Women's Hockey Player of the Year Award. On March 7, 1996, she became the first woman to appear in a professional hockey game in a position other than goaltender, when, as a member of the Colonial Hockey League's Flint Generals, she played at forward for 18 seconds in a game against the Madison Monsters.
• Leslie Castle is considered the grandmother of girls' and women's hockey in Minnesota. She was part of the movement that led Minnesota to become the first state to recognize girls' hockey as a varsity sport, in 1994.[23]
• Laura Halldorson was a coach for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, and played at Princeton with Patty Kazmaier. In addition, she played with Cindy Curley and Lauren Apollo on the earliest U.S. National teams. Five of the players she coached at Minnesota would later become Olympians themselves, including 2006 U.S. captain Krissy Wendell.
• The late Patty Kazmaier played for the Princeton Tigers. An 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,[24] in EA Sports NHL 12. In previous experiences with EA Sports' NHL titles, she spent hours with the custom team features in an attempt to recreate the Purple Eagles (an all-girls team Peters plays for). The various titles' player creation options did not include a female character build.[25] Peters asked her father why there were no female characters in past video games. Her dad suggested that she write a letter to the company and inquire about it.[26] David Littman, the lead producer of the EA Sports NHL game, received permission from the NHL and EA's lawyers to include Lexi Peters in their EA Sports NHL 12 video game (released on September 13, 2011).[27] EA Sports informed Lexi that they were going to have her as the game's "default" female player that gamers would be able to customize.

In 1994, more than 500 member schools were sent letters by the Minnesota State high school league. The intent was to determine how many schools were interested in starting girls' ice hockey teams. Twenty-four expressed interest as the league was looking for a new sport for Title IX purposes. On March 21, 1994, the Minnesota State High School League sanctioned girls' ice hockey. Minnesota became the first state in the U.S. to sanction girls' ice hockey as a high school varsity sport.[28] On March 25, 1995, Apple Valley High School defeated the South St. Paul Packers, 2-0, to become the first Minnesota girls' state high school champion.

From 1994 to 2002, the number of varsity girls' teams in Minnesota expanded from 24 to 125 (in two classifications, AA and A). In 2001, a three-day girls' state tournament attracted 15,551 spectators.[29] In 1994 there were 1,863 girls in the state participating in organized hockey outside of a varsity high school program. In 2002, the number increased to 6,856.[29]

The following women's ice hockey tournaments (featuring teams from other nations) were contested in the United States.

• January 28, 2005: Angela Ruggiero played for the Tulsa Oilers in a Central Hockey League game against the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. She was the first woman to actively play in a regular season professional hockey game in the United States at a position other than goalie. In addition, since her brother Bill Ruggiero also played for the Oilers, they were the first brother-sister combination to play professionally at the same time.[35]
• 2009: Alex Rigsby was the first female to be drafted by the United States Hockey League. She was selected by the Chicago Steel.[36] She went on to play for the Wisconsin Badgers women's ice hockey program.[37]

• 1990–91: USA Hockey counts 2,700 women participating in ice hockey.
• 1993–94: USA Hockey count reveals that the number of women participants has increased to 6,300.
• 1997–98: USA Hockey now reports 23,010 female players.
• 1998: Women's ice hockey becomes an Olympic medal sport at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, with the U.S. women winning the gold medal.
• 2005: The number of U.S. female hockey players reaches 52,469.[38]
• 2006-07: 57,549 female players registered
• 2009-2010: 61,612 female players registered
• 2010-11: 65,509 female players registered
• 2013-14: 67, 230 female players registered
• 2014-15: 69,744 female players registered
• Article by Mike Murphy (theicegarden.com) Sep 5, 2018, 8:30am EDT: "At the inaugural IIHF Women’s Ice Hockey Workshop in Copenhagen in July, IIHF Women’s Committee Chairwoman Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer shared that there are now nearly 200,000 women playing hockey across the world; in 2010 there were just over 170,000. That’s a growth of 17.64 percent in eight years"

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