Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/628545
THE FIRST-EVER PAID PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S HOCKEY LEAGUE opens the doors for girls to dream even bigger FEBRUARY.2016 // MINNESOTAHOCKEYJOURNAL.COM 21 Look back on the history of girl's and women's hockey and that's immediately clear. Women's hockey was first introduced on the interna- tional stage in 1990 with the Women's World Ice Hockey Championships. Eight years later women made their Olympic debut in Japan— with Team USA taking home Gold. Throughout that same time—and in Minnesota even slightly before—girl's associations, and high school and college teams, began to spring up. In 1990 there were 6,336 registered females playing hockey in the United States. In 2014-15 there were 69,744. Over that same stretch of time, Minnesota went from 961 female players to 12,808. But while hockey was booming for females of all ages, something was still missing. Girls growing up with the game only had the Olympic team to dream about. Team USA was the only vision that allowed females to continue playing hockey at a high-level past college—until now, thanks to the National Women's Hockey League, the first-ever paid-for-play pro- fessional women's league in the world. "New girls getting involved in the game will never know that there was ever another way; that there was never not a professional women's hockey league," said Dani Rylan, com- missioner of the NWHL. "That's the really spe- cial thing about it. Obviously there have been a lot of girls who have dreamed of playing in the NHL, but now this is a realistic dream to play professional women's hockey." BUILDING A TEAM Rylan used to be one of those little girls dreaming of playing hockey past college. A former player for the Northeastern Huskies, she originally wanted to bring a Canadian Women's Hockey League expansion team to New York in 2014. When that didn't work, she decided to create her own team—and the league that went with it. "(The NWHL) was made with a lot of work, blood, sweat and tears is the general answer I give people," said Rylan when asked how the league came to fruition. "It's not just me, though. I have an amazing team around me, and a lot of people who are dedicated to making this dream a reality and who have not taken 'no' for an answer. They do whatever it takes to get the job done, and that's how we got to where we are today." Teaming up with U.S. Olympian and world- renowned women's hockey player and advo- cate Angela Ruggiero, the pair introduced the NWHL in March of 2015. "New girls getting involved in the game will never know that there was ever another way; that there was never not a professional women's hockey league. That's the really special thing about it." —DANI RYLAN, NWHL COMMISSIONER ( Hockey ) A LEAGUE BY JESSI PIERCE A lot can happen in 25 years. OF THEIR OWN