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PHOTOS BY Images On Ice After intimately working with a dog for nearly half of a year, Pankowski has a hard time saying goodbye when the animal is ready for its next step. "I cry all the time, but I don't think the job would be as rewarding if you didn't cry or you didn't feel a little something," Pankowski says. "It shows you how spe- cial those dogs really are." During the last four years, Pankowski has logged in excess of 2,000 volunteer hours at OccuPaws. "It was never a chore or never work for me," she says. "I never thought of it that way." What's surprising is Pankowski, who graduated from Wisconsin on May 11 with a zoology degree, didn't take much of a step off from raising dogs during hockey season. During a typical week, Pankowski would have her dog on weekdays and then OccuPaws would line up a puppysitter on the weekends when Pankowski had games. Competing in a sport such as hockey can be stressful. Pankowski uses her dog training as a relaxation method. "It just gives me an avenue to kind of just be a normal person and enjoy the little things—not get caught up in training or how a game went," she says. "It's just another part of my life that adds balance." It was an intense senior season for Pankowski but her most rewarding. She was able to check off one extreme- ly monumental goal. In a matter of three weeks, Pankowski helped the Badgers capture the NCAA Division I national champion- ship on March 24 and then helped Team USA win its fifth straight IIHF Women's World Championship in April. "You work your whole career for something like that and for it to pay off is incredible," Pankowski says. "You take a step back and you look that I'm the only player in women's hockey that was a national champion and a world champion, so that's something special to me as well." Winning a national title with Wisconsin was a dream that nearly escaped Pankowski. In her first three sea- sons, she skated in the Frozen Four, but the Badgers couldn't win the big game. "I think we saw full circle this year as we were wrap- ping up the season, her one void was a national cham- pionship," Johnson recalls. "She's been close a couple times and that always stings you. It was fun to watch her win it this year and that smile and the way they grabbed that trophy and the way they celebrated." 18 // AUGUST 2019 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM Now that her college career is over, Pankowski has one more goal left on her hockey bucket list: compete in the Olympics. As a teenager, Pankowski was a final cut for the 2014 Olympics. Three years later, she had another shot. During the 2017-18 season, Pankowski took a redshirt season at Wisconsin to play on the U.S. Women's National Team. She thought she had made the team to compete in the 2018 Games but just weeks before heading to PyeongChang, she was cut. The move left her devasted. Now, Pankowski's sights are set on a run at the 2022 Beijing Games. What adds a little twist to the equation is Pankowski will be a little tied up with school at the same time as she pursues a doctorate degree at Wisconsin as a veterinarian. She starts classes in the fall. Pankowski, 24, plans on training hard on the ice this summer. If she keeps making Team USA squads, she'll continue her quest for the Olympics. You take a step back and you look that I'm the only player in women's hockey that was a national champion and a world champion, so that's something special to me... A N N I E P A N K O W S K I "