ASU Women’s Hockey: The growing pains of being a hockey player in the desert

(Photo: Reagan Smith/WCSN)

Phoenix might not be the first place when thinking hockey, but that narrative is beginning to change as more and more players from Arizona are finding their way onto teams each year.

Five players from the greater Phoenix area are on the roster for the 2019-20 season at Arizona State. Two of them include sophomore Abby Steinman and freshman Karlie Chadwick.

Steinman, who tallied seven points as a freshman a year ago, wasn’t born in Arizona.

She moved to the southern Tempe area from Canada in the sixth grade and didn’t start playing hockey until she moved here.

“Everyone kept asking me ‘Do you play hockey?’ and every day I would say ‘no’,” Steinman said. “And finally, one day I said ‘yes’, and they asked me when a game was, so I bought gear and I started playing.”

As for Chadwick, she was able to play hockey at Desert Vista High School after her parents, who played hockey in Philadelphia, influenced her to become a player.

“They just kinda were like ‘Here you go!’,” Chadwick said.

Growing up playing hockey in Arizona has brought its own set of challenges — especially for those in women’s hockey.

“Well I played boys, so just being the only girl was definitely hard and I’m really shy, so just being part of the team was hard,” Chadwick said. “I didn’t ever feel like I was part of a team playing with boys, so when I moved to girls it got a lot easier.”

Youth hockey programs specifically for girls in Arizona are few and far between, forcing girls to play on youth teams with boys.

Although that might be perceived as a disadvantage, Steinman had a different perspective, adding that playing on a boys team was somewhat beneficial.

“For me, I felt like it was almost a little bit like more favor when we were on the boys’ teams,” Steinman said. “We were a team playing in Tempe and we’d have to drive like an hour and a half to like Peoria in the mornings for 7 a.m.’s…there’s a lot more opportunities in boy’s hockey than there was in girls…”

Despite the lack of participation at the youth level for girl’s hockey, some numbers are pointing to a change in direction for the sport.

In a new report by Cronkite News, participation in Arizona women’s hockey has grown dramatically since 2012.

In the 2012-13 season, a total of 301 females played hockey. After the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics that saw the United States women’s hockey team take home the gold medal, the 2014-15 season had a spike in participation with 508 female players. That number continued to grow in 2018-19 with a total of 764 players in the state.

According to Steinman, the increase of female players comes down to the new opportunities that have arisen in recent years.

 “I think that there’s a lot more opportunity now,” she said. “And especially growing up and playing hockey, our teams always got to talk to the little girls’ teams or little girls on certain teams and we just told them ‘keep playing and don’t worry about it.’”

Part of the issue of playing hockey on the west coast is the travel aspect. There is a lot of traveling done throughout the year with a majority of teams in the mid-west and on the east coast.

“It’s hard to just have to leave the state to play hockey you know,” Steinman said. “A lot of people are choosing either I play hockey, or I don’t. And now there’s actual opportunity.”

With the growing opportunities in Phoenix, one program that has been a massive success for women’s hockey is the Arizona Lady Coyotes, also known as the Arizona Kachinas, development program.

The program, in conjunction with the Arizona Coyotes, provides a competitive hockey program for girls until they reach their senior year of high school.

Chadwick and Steinman were both teammates when they were a part of the Lady Coyotes.

“I met some of my best friends there that I play with still now. Like Karlie and Sheridan [Gloyd] we played together,” Steinman said, “I know Jordan [Nash-Boulden] used to play for the Lady Coyotes as well and she was always a year older than me and her.”

The Lady Coyotes has been a stepping-stone to playing colligate hockey for many players and it’s been used as a place to develop as a player too.

“I got so much more confident,” Chadwick said. “I played [defense] in boys and now I play forward, and part of that was playing girls and being more confident and being able to skate the puck more and not being scared.”

The path to playing hockey in Phoenix may not be like other cities in the country, but the uniqueness of playing in a city that reaches triple-digit temperatures makes being a hockey player in the Valley all that more intriguing.

“I think it’s such a great program that ASU has,” Steinman said. “We’re literally in Phoenix, Arizona or Tempe, Arizona and it’s hot outside. We walk in here and it’s cold in here. Who wouldn’t want to play hockey here? We’re really lucky.”

The challenges of playing in the desert are part of the growing pains felt from a city continuing to figure out ways to grow the sport of hockey.

Having programs such as the Arizona Kachinas and ASU’s Women’s Hockey team have helped grow the sport with even more programs popping up to assist young girls who want to play hockey in Arizona.

The Sun Devils will make their first appearance in the desert this season when they take on rivals Grand Canyon Oct. 4-5 at AZ Ice Arcadia.

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