Oilers scout Rylan Kearney continuing to blaze new trails in hockey

In NHL.com’s Q&A feature called “Sitting Down with …” we talk to key figures in the game, gaining insight into their lives on and off the ice. This week, as part of our Women's History Month coverage, we feature Dani Rylan Kearney, the founder and former commissioner of the National Women’s Hockey League, who is now a pro scout for the Edmonton Oilers.

Dani Rylan Kearney was presented with a choice when she visited an ice rink the first time as a 5-year-old in Tampa, Florida.

The decision went on to impact her entire life.

“My dad used to work in marketing and advertising for the Tampa Bay Lightning, so he brought my brothers and I to the rink and there was a choice to make whether I should rent figure skates or hockey skates,” Rylan Kearney said. “I went with what my brothers chose, which was hockey skates, and I never really looked back. I was hooked.”

Rylan Kearney grew up playing hockey in the Tampa Bay area, which eventually led to her being hired as a pro scout for the Edmonton Oilers in October 2023.

Along the way, the 38-year-old played two seasons at Northeastern University, worked as a broadcaster on NHL Network, started a coffee shop in New York called Rise and Grind, and then founded the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), the first professional women’s hockey league in the United States.

“Like a lot of players, I graduated from college and realized there wasn’t a clear professional path for women who wanted to complete at a high level,” Rylan Kearney said. “So the idea behind the NWHL was to create that opportunity and have the first paying women’s league that would be home to the best players in the world to continue playing professionally.”

She poured her heart getting the league off the ground, which came to fruition after exhaustive months of work.

The NWHL launched in March 2015 with four teams and Rylan Kearney as the commissioner, a role she held for five seasons. The NWHL paved the way for today’s Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which has expanded to eight teams throughout North America.

“Obviously there were highs and lows, but what I can say is from Day 1, our colleagues, investors, staff and especially the players were relentless and shining a light on the importance of having a women’s professional league in North America,” she said. “I’m proud of what we were able to build together and although I’ve moved on to the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers, I’m obviously so excited to watch the continued emergence of the PWHL and the growth of the women’s game in general, most recently highlighted by the Olympic run by the United States and Canada.”

Rylan Kearney sat down with NHL.com to discuss her hockey journey and her becoming the Oilers first female pro scout.

How did you develop your love of hockey?

“The Lightning were brand new when I was young and it was exciting to see hockey taking root in the community, but there weren’t very many rinks. We actually grew up skating at Sun Blades (Ice Skating Center), which was the same practice rink at the Lightning. Some of the guys would hop on the ice with us; John Tucker, Brian Bradley, Rudy Poeschek, these are guys that taught all of us how to skate and fall in love with the game. So when you talk about real grassroots efforts like those guys were putting in at the time, making sure that the community became a hockey town, and you look at where it is now, they did a great job doing that.”

What appealed to you about hockey?

“It was everything. It was being with family, being with teammates, skating fast. We grew up at the rink and so it was everything about the game we all fell in love with. I started skating and playing in 1992, and that was the Lightning’s inaugural season. It was awesome, that just became part or our family childhood growing up. We were going to the rink every week, every weekend."

What was it like playing minor hockey in Tampa Bay?

“There weren’t too many teams in the area at the time and it’s grown significantly since. I don’t think I saw another ponytail (girl) probably until I was 11 or 12 years old. We had to travel quite a bit over around the state, around the Southeast. So like many hockey parents, my parents were unbelievable and committing to so many hours and miles to get us to rinks and games and all that.”

With your dad working for the Lightning, did you get to go to a lot of NHL games?

“Yes, and probably the most memorable was in 2004 when the Lightning won the Stanley Cup. My dad had two tickets to every playoff game and he’d rotate who he would take between my brothers, my mom, clients, whoever it would be. I was away at boarding school and I flew home the night before Game 7 (against the Calgary Flames). My brothers thought it was only fair they got to go because they were around the whole time and I had just flown in. But my dad thought it was only fair that I got to go and the Lightning ended up winning the Cup, and that was just an awesome experience and game to be at. It was just such a great moment for the sport in such a great hockey town.”

Who were some of your favorite players growing up?

“Denis Savard played for the Lightning for a bit and I cried when he retired. Dino Ciccarelli and Darcy Tucker both played for the Lightning for a bit and those were two guys that I really liked. I’m a smaller player myself and seeing how they played much bigger than they were was inspiring. Those were probably my three favorites.”

What type of player were you?

“I was definitely a good skater and a hard worker. I tried to play bigger than I was as well. I took a lot of pride in competing. I would also say I was a locker room person. Teammates and team culture were always a big part of why I loved the game.”

How old were you when you first played on an all-girls team?

“I was 14 when I started playing on an all-girls team. I went away to a boarding school in Massachusetts, St. Mark’s School. That was the first time I was surrounded by all girls. I played on a club team outside of the school as well. I went there for four years before going to play at Northeastern. I went to St. Mark’s to play hockey but I got a good education as well. It was a great experience, I loved every minute there. I tell people if I could relive those four years over and over again, I probably would. Just living with your best friends and playing hockey every day, it was awesome.”

You went to play two years at Metropolitan State College in Denver before you went to Northeastern. What was your time at Northeastern like?

“Northeastern was awesome, Boston is such a great hockey city. The campus was great, my teammates were awesome. I loved our coaching staff, so it was really just an awesome two years of playing and grown up. We won the women’s Beanpot tournament in Boston my last year, which was probably a career highlight. My dad flew in to watch the game and he didn’t get to make many games, so it was extra special to have him there for that. Now to see what the Beanpot tournament has grown into, the women play at the (TD) Garden now and they sell it out. It’s really evolved into an amazing event, it’s just as big as the men’s.”

What makes the Beanpot so popular?

“It’s Boston bragging rights. It’s B.C. (Boston College), BU (Boston University) Harvard, Northeastern and a lot of people in New England have ties to one of those four programs, so everyone has a stake in the game. It’s such an established tournament that it’s already a huge event, but it’s getting bigger and bigger on the women’s side. It used to alternate host arenas for the women, so when we won my last year we played at Walter Brown Arena at BU, but the men were always at the Garden. So for the women’s game to move there and go to toe-to-toe with the men’s as far as attendance and viewership and all that, it’s unbelievable.”

What gave you the idea to start a women’s professional league?

“I moved to New York to work on the broadcast for NHL Network. It was awesome, but after working there for about a year, I realized that I had more to give to the sport and maybe go in a different direction. So I got the idea to start the NWHL. A monster checklist was how it started, not dissimilar to Rise and Grind, that had a smaller checklist. Just to get started, you just go and it was rinks, travel, players, staff, ticketing, platforms, marketing, you name it, it was getting worked on all at the same time. We started with Boston, Buffalo, Connecticut, and New York. The NWHL was my baby, it was my everything. It was relentless work, every day, eight days a week.”

What was it like seeing it all come together with that first game after all the work you put in?

“It was unbelievable, not just for me personally, putting in the hard work, sweat and tears, but for the players and the staff. I was just such a monumental moment in women’s hockey to have the first paid pro league launched. So the pucks drops on opening night and Manon Rheaume dropped the puck up in Buffalo for one of the very first NWHL games, and just to see that come full circle was super special. It was a very emotional time and to see where the game has grown today is really awesome as well.”

What do you think about the growth in women’s hockey and where the game is now?

“It’s unbelievable and that was always the goal to get it on to the stage that it’s on now. To see it there and continue to grow, year over year, it’s awesome. There are no words for it, I’m so proud of everyone who’s put in the work to get it to where it is today.

How did you become a pro scout for the Oilers?

“I have to give a lot of credit to my friend and former colleague Hayley Moore. She introduced me to Brad Holland, who was the assistant general manager for the Oilers at the time. There happened to be an opening in pro scouting and they convinced me to go for it and it’s been an incredible opportunity to stay connected to the game in a different way. This is my third season and I live in New York. I scout in the area but we all share responsibilities. We have a great team and we work really well together under Warren Rychel, who’s our director of pro scouting. We overlap a lot so we can have a more productive roundtable conversation when the time comes, but I definitely frequent teams in my market the most.”

What are some of the challenges of the job?

“There’s a good amount of travel for sure, but that’s what keeps it intriguing, getting on the road and seeing new markets and seeing new players and learning the new teams. It’s been super rewarding. Maybe one of the biggest challenges is probably the amount of travel and the constant evaluation that comes with the role. You’re watching a lot of hockey and trying to identify details in players’ games that translate well at the NHL level and could help the Oilers get to their ultimate goal. When you get to have a voice at the table and contribute, good bad or ugly and give your opinion on players, it’s been great.”