Columbus coaches lead the way in growing the game

As National Girls and Women in Sports Day is recognized today, the year 2024 brings a whole new meaning to the occasion.

The inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League has shown exactly how much growth the sport has made, allowing women to make hockey their careers. Within recent decades, the opportunities available for women and girls in hockey have changed tremendously.

Women from all over the world have begun playing hockey more than ever, and the sport has also been growing right here in Columbus along the same lines.

For someone like successful Ohio State women’s hockey head coach Nadine Muzerall, the hockey scene growing up was a whole different beast, even being from Canada.

“There was no girls hockey where I grew up because I was born in 1978,” she said. “So, I grew up in the ‘80s, and women's and girls' hockey wasn't that big yet. So, I played with all the boys. I played boys hockey until I was about 12, and then I transferred over to the girls.”

This is vastly different from her experience here in Columbus with Ohio State. We are now seeing women playing for powerhouse teams, fighting for the national championship year in and year out before heading into the professional ranks.

Muzerall (pictured above) is in her eighth season coaching at OSU, creating an internationally recognized program that is again ranked No. 1 in college hockey with a 24-2-0 record. She led the school to its first-ever national championship in 2022 and has been named the WCHA conference coach of the year four times.

Muzerall played hockey at the University of Minnesota, and she still leads the program for all-time goals scored with 139 and graduated as the career points leader for Minnesota.

“You don't think like young girls would now, where they have an opportunity to play post collegiate and get paid and play in front of thousands and thousands of fans,” she said. “You just always thought, ‘I'm going to be the first woman and I'm going to be the first woman in the Olympics.’

“You know, like that was the only thing you could dream of because there weren't opportunities or a thought that there would be a league for professional women. But there would be an Olympics, you know? So, these young girls like my daughter's age, who is 9, have now a dream and an aspiration to obtain what they dream up.”

Having role models in the sport that can have a similar perspective is so important for the burgeoning girls’ hockey players of the world and in Central Ohio.

As such, Muzerall reflects on the impact female coaches have had on her success as a hockey player, and even now as a coach. We are now seeing more women taking on important roles in hockey franchises, whether that be professionally or at the collegiate level, and this will ultimately continue to trickle down to the youth levels.

“I think I was about almost 17 when I had a first female head coach, and then I had a college coach, of course, that was a woman named Laura Halldorson, who started Minnesota and won three titles in a very short span of time,” Muzerall said. “And she still comes to all my games, and I always lean on her as a role model, you know? So those are two very inspiring women in my life for coaching."

The Future Role Models

With the recent success of the OSU women's team at the top of the pyramid, the future for girls playing hockey in Columbus is brighter than ever.

In her third year coaching at Ohio State alongside Muzerall, assistant coach Kelsey Cline has helped develop a squad of superstars, including eight players who have moved on to the PWHL in its inaugural season. To Cline, the differences in women's hockey now versus when she played in college for the University of Minnesota are clear.

“We always have young girls at our games and are very connected to our team,” Cline said. "It always takes time, but obviously those steps are being taken in this area to continue to grow and develop the players that are here and allow them opportunities here in Columbus to stay and play."

This can be seen in Columbus native Zoe Douglass, who learned how to play hockey right here and has seen the sport changing before her own eyes. When she started with the Columbus Ice Hockey Club, the now 19-year-old was one of the only girls on the ice; now, she sees more girls when she helps coach the club that introduced her to the sport.

“When I have the time, I do try and give back and come help coach the younger age groups,” said Douglass (pictured above). “It is definitely cool to see because when I go coach, there's way more girls than there ever were when I was playing, so it's just really awesome to see these girls getting involved in hockey.”

Inspired by her brothers, Douglass hit the ice at age 6 in the youth programs Columbus offered. After playing for the Columbus Ice Hockey Club program herself, she has now returned as a coach while she is in college, working with the JV high school level team that plays in the Ohio Scholastic Hockey League.

She said she would recommend hockey to any girls considering playing a sport. The Columbus Ice Hockey Club accepts players of any ability, so she urges anyone to try because she found so much passion within the sport and the community it breeds.

“I guess just jump into the deep end,” she said. “You most likely won't regret it because it's just such a fun sport. It's hard in the beginning because you have to learn to balance yourself, but it is worth it in the end. The community is amazing, and you’ll just have so many friends and have something to bond with people over because the hockey community is becoming bigger and bigger."

Both Douglass and Izzy Heminger grew up in Columbus and now are coaching girls' hockey in Columbus. With more youth programs becoming available to girls, the number of female coaches can also grow, expanding the game from the inside out.

Heminger is a native of Dublin who got into hockey because of her older brother, Joel. Growing up in a family that was season ticket holders for the Blue Jackets, Heminger got the hockey bug and played for the first iteration of the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets girls' program in the mi- 2010s.

The first alumna of the AAA program to play Division I hockey, Heminger skated at Penn State and is ranked third overall on the Nittany Lions’ career list in points among defenders with 41 (10 goals, 31 assists). After graduating, she moved back to Columbus and now volunteers within the same AAA program she grew up a part of.

“When I graduated, one of the first things I was thinking about is I wanted to give back to the program that gave me everything,” she said. “And that's a big reason why I help volunteer because I know how much the AAA Blue Jackets gave me growing up. They gave me all the resources that I needed. And I just want to make sure that these girls have every resource they need, and I told a couple of them if you ever want to talk about anything, whether it's the path, what you need to work on, whatever, just let me know.

“I just want them to have the same opportunities I have, which they do. And I want them to make use of whatever makes them happy, but I want them to make use of everything that the program gives them.”

After Heminger (pictured above) left to play at Penn State, the AAA Blue Jackets team on the girls’ side was inactive for a number of years. In a reflection of how much the sport is growing, the AAA Blue Jackets brought back the girls’ program last season, and now there are teams at three different age levels.

“Coming back to Columbus and seeing where the program's come and how many more girls there were at these practices versus like mine growing up, there was probably like 10 girls at each practice just because we had people from like Tennessee, Georgia, all over the place,” she said. “And now all these girls come to every practice that they have.

“It's amazing seeing them play and honestly, this season, I can see how much better they've gotten, whether it's how they're passing to each other, their shots or keeping their head up more, all those things. It's just great seeing how big hockey has become in Columbus for the youth girls.”

Success At All Levels

The importance of the growth of women's college and professional leagues cannot be overlooked when growing a sport at the youth level. Cline emphasizes the importance of connecting girls and women of all ages to continue pushing the game forward.

“I think the connectivity between all levels, whether that is the pro level, college level, high school level, their impact on the youth levels, and to the point of the coaching to these younger girls, they look up to those levels above them, and they want to be in those things,” Cline said. “I think that women's hockey, it's more I still say in its infancy, where there's so much room to grow, and it's growing at such a rapid pace that I think over the next few years, everyone's going to continue to see it grow and grow."

Cline, who finished her career at the University of Minnesota in 2017, said the difference in college players now versus when she played is apparent, emphasizing how rapidly the game is changing.

“It’s crazy to see what these players are doing now,” she said. “Every team doesn't have just a few top players. All the players on every team, the baseline has grown so much that every year, every level of hockey gets better and better. And that goes to practice, availability, the level of coaching, access to training and opportunity, and that trickles all the way up to the top levels. And now with the PWHL, it's been awesome to see that the fans showing up to those games are young girls wanting to see those players play.”

The introduction of the PWHL has already changed the way college teams recruit players and changes how players choose where to go for college, because there are now professional careers to look forward to for women.

“What's unique is now women are going to start choosing OSU because it'll increase their draft pick and increase their salary,” Muzerall said. “Yeah, I mean, I can go to a No. 1 team in the country. I will develop, I will play with the best of the best in practice and in games in our conference, and that will make me, instead of going in the fourth round, go in the first or second round, and I'll get a boost to my salary as well. So that to me is now a totally unique piece of coaching that was not here months ago.”

Whether it be the OSU women’s team all the way down to those girls just getting on the ice, hockey is growing in Central Ohio and will only continue to do so with the presence of the Blue Jackets.

“I noticed the Blue Jackets have been a very great partner affiliation with our program,” Muzerall said. “They've been extremely supportive of our team and our success. And I know that they've been trying to develop the youth because honestly, that's where it has to start.”