Bruins Host Annual Girls Hockey Day, ‘Fills Me With So Much Joy’

BOSTON –– A.J. Mleczko pulled her Olympic medals out of her pockets and passed them to the doting young hockey players who surrounded her.

Mleczko, now an NHL analyst for ESPN, won gold with Team USA in 1998 when women’s hockey made its debut at the Winter Olympic Games. The U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer also earned a silver medal in 2002 at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Mleczko was back on the ice on Monday at TD Garden as part of the Boston Bruins’ eighth annual Girls Hockey Day, presented by Wasabi Technologies.

“Seeing all these kids out here now, you can just see the excitement and enthusiasm,” Mleczko said. “It builds. It’s amazing. When they can see it, and they can see the women out there doing what they do, playing so well, pushing and making this game so much better, and now all these little girls get to come out here and try their hand at it. It fills me with so much joy.”

The event began with a public skate for participants from the Bruins Girls Learn to Play program, which has reached new youth hockey players in 14 different locations across New England, including Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. It continued with games between local female teams.​

“It’s just a great experience getting girls and women of all ages and ranges out on the ice, and showing them that they can play hockey too,” said Elizabeth Viola, who is the Bruins’ youth hockey and fan development specialist.

“It’s a huge thing that we do in the community relations and youth hockey team. It’s one of our big pillars – making hockey affordable and accessible for people of all ages and demographics. Something like this is just a great way we can incorporate it all. We really take pride in growing the game.”

Part of the Bruins’ effort to grow the game came in partnership with Wasabi Technologies, which helped present a check of $10,000 to Dream Big, a non-profit organization that supports girls and young women in achieving their athletic goals.

Linda Driscoll, who is the founder, president and CEO of Dream Big, joined the learn-to-play group at center ice for the donation.

“Dream Big provides girls and young women from economically disadvantaged communities with sports equipment, uniforms, program fees, college showcase scholarships. Whatever they need to participate in sports,” Driscoll said. “This $10,000 will help us to be able to expand that. With the increase in the interest in women's sports, so many more girls want to participate, but the cost has become a barrier that’s become very significant.”

Team USA winning gold in the women’s hockey tournament at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina has spiked that interest. USA Hockey announced on Friday that it welcomed its 100,000th female hockey player of the 2025-26 season, marking a new milestone for the organization. The number of girls and women’s hockey players in the U.S. has grown by 257% since women’s hockey was first played at the 1998 Olympics, per USA Hockey.

The arrival of the PWHL and the city’s own Boston Fleet has added to the movement. These teams and their players – both national and professional – are not something Mleczko had to look up to when she was first starting her playing career. She takes pride in where the game stands today.

“A lot of [the kids] said they’re not hockey players, but they’re going to be now that they watched Team USA win the gold medal in Milan just a couple weeks ago. That, for me, is when you actually see the tangible growth,” Mleczko said. “I played for the joy of it. I loved it, I loved my teammates all the way through. Work hard. There are so many things that are fun when you put the work in.”  

Boston Fleet forward Sophie Shirley was at Girls Hockey Day, too. Seven of her teammates competed in the Olympics, and four came home with medals. Megan Keller, Aerin Frankel and Haley Winn captured gold with Team USA; Keller had the overtime, game-winning goal. Alina Müller also had an overtime, game-winning goal to secure bronze for Switzerland.

“To have the girls we have on our team do what they did at that international stage was amazing. That only pushes women’s hockey forward and women’s sports as a whole forward,” Shirley said. “Super lucky to have those ladies on our team.”

Shirley did her own part on Monday, assisting the girls through drills, answering questions and showing some of her Fleet equipment.

​“As someone who is in the position that I am in now, I think being a role model and being someone for these girls to look up to is a huge thing,” Shirley said. “When I was younger, I didn’t have that a lot. To be able to be in this position and to have the league that we have is just great for them.”

It won’t be long until Shirley and her Fleet teammates lace up for their own game at TD Garden. Boston will host the Montreal Victoire on April 11 for the first PWHL game at the Garden. The matchup has officially sold out its 17,850 capacity, the Fleet announced on Thursday.

Mleczko, who Shirley said was one of her role models growing up, assured she would be in the building for the historic night.

While the deserved build-up around women’s hockey is something Mleczko has been waiting for, it is not something that surprises her. Standing on the TD Garden ice with more than 40 girls doing laps around her, Mleczko thought back to a story at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. She brought her then two-year-old daughter, Jaime, who is now a sophomore defender for the Boston College women’s hockey team.  

“She got there, and she watched the women play, and then she watched the men play. And she looked at me, and she said, ‘Boys play hockey, too?’” Mleczko said. “That was back in 2006. You think now, these athletes don’t look at it as a boy's sport. They look at it as there’s boys hockey and there’s girls hockey, there’s co-ed hockey, there’s sled hockey. Hockey is for everyone.”