Women’s hockey is on the rise in
Pacific Northwest, with young girls excited about PWHL's arrival
[June 11, 2025]
By ANDREW DESTIN
SEATTLE (AP) — Elly Garcia-Dudek can’t help but gaze out toward the
ice during hockey practices at the Kraken Community Iceplex.
The 12-year-old Garcia-Dudek is a big fan of women’s national team
stars like Hilary Knight, who starred for the Boston Fleet of the
Professional Women’s Hockey League last season. Pretty soon, Garcia-Dudek
— who started playing through the Seattle Kraken’s Learn to Play
program — won’t have to look across the country for role models like
Knight.
The PWHL is expanding to Vancouver and to Seattle next season, which
was music to Garcia-Dudek’s ears. She and her family are Kraken fans
and have already put down deposits for PWHL Seattle season tickets.
Luckily for Garcia-Dudek, Knight has agreed to play in Seattle.
“It’s really inspiring and cool to watch them play because it’s
different from the men’s game because women aren’t used to playing
with contact, but they get to with the PWHL, which is really cool to
watch,” Garcia-Dudek said. “It inspires me personally like, ‘Oh, I
can be one of them when I grow up.’”
Seattle's lineup should feature plenty of offense from the outset,
especially with Knight — a four-time Olympian and PWHL MVP finalist
last season — on the scene.
“Hilary is a superstar in every way, right?" Seattle GM Meghan
Turner said of Knight after the PWHL expansion draft. “Like she
plays the way she plays, the way she carries herself in the locker
room, the way that she carries herself outside the rink. She’s just
really got at all.”
The Pacific Northwest expansion will give the PWHL eight teams and
its first two west of Minnesota. The moves are expected to spur even
more interest across the region in hockey, which has steadily grown
especially in Seattle since the arrival of the Kraken in 2021.
Pacific Northwest hockey
When Martin Hlinka began his tenure as director of the Kraken Youth
Hockey Association in April 2021, they had just 72 players across
six teams. The KYHA now has 39 boys and girls teams, including a 14U
Jr Kraken team that Garcia-Dudek will play on this year. Hlinka
credits this growth in large part to the Kraken’s presence.
“The growth was great because more kids watch games on TV or in
person,” Hlinka said, “and they have a better interest and they’re
excited to be part of it.”
The expectation on Hlinka’s end is that the addition of PWHL Seattle
will only further increase Seattle’s intrigue in hockey at the youth
level. The sport has already taken sizable steps forward, though,
over the last few decades.
Since 2014-15, there's been an increase of 1,744 more youth hockey
players in Washington. And since 2021-22, when the Kraken began
play, an additional 268 kids have started playing in the state.
The growth has been observed by Julia Takatsuka, a goalie
coordinator for the Jr Kraken who grew up playing hockey in the
Seattle suburb of Lynnwood. When she was a kid, Takatsuka said, she
had to travel to Canada every weekend for tournaments, and that
practice rinks were relatively spartan compared to the Iceplex,
which boasts three rinks and was built in September 2021.
[to top of second column] |
From left, President and CEO of the Seattle Sports Commission Beth
Knox, PWHL Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Jayna
Hefford, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, PWHL Executive Vice President
of Business Operations Amy Scheer, King County Executive Shannon
Braddock, Seattle Kraken co-owner Samantha Holloway, Seattle Kraken
CEO Tod Leiweke and Seattle council member Joy Hollingsworth pose
for a group photo after a press conference announcing the new PWHL
expansion hockey team Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Seattle.
(Jennifer Buchanan/The Seattle Times via AP, File)
“I would have loved to train at a place like (KCI)
where we have all of the actual things we need,” Takatsuka said. “I
was a goalie, so we need pegs to hold the nets down. I didn’t have
that. We have that now. We have ice that has real creases for the
goalies. Didn’t have that growing up, either.”
The Seattle area requires more work and time to become a women’s
hockey hotbed, though. As Hlinka pointed out, there is only so much
ice time to go around, and there aren’t nearly as many rinks in
Seattle as there are in cities like Vancouver or Toronto.
Seeds for growth
Still, there’s clear evidence women’s hockey has already grown in
Seattle.
The women’s club hockey team at the University of Washington played
its inaugural season in 2021. This has allowed Regan Thomas, a West
Seattle native and student at Washington, to continue playing the
sport she adores. It wasn’t until she went to boarding school in New
Hampshire that Thomas even became aware she could play hockey.
Soccer was Thomas’ sport of choice as a kid, and she had quite the
role model in Megan Rapinoe, the national team standout who starred
for Seattle Reign FC for a decade. Though Thomas wishes Seattle
could have had a pro women’s hockey team when she was a kid, such
won’t be the case for countless young girls in the Pacific Northwest
moving forward.
“I think having those role models is incredibly important,” Thomas
said. “I find myself even now like ‘Ugh, I wish this was around 10
years ago.’ Because not that I would have ever made it, but just
kind of the dream of making it — you figure out how to push yourself
harder.”
Lindsay Skogmo’s son, Oliver, already has plenty of role models
whenever he shows up to KCI for practice with the 8-and-under Jr
Kraken team. When Skogmo was recently at her son’s school, she heard
rumblings from girls about how hockey wasn’t for them.
Skogmo hopes pro women’s hockey in Seattle will inspire young girls
like Garcia-Dudek to keep dreaming big.
“I feel like in this world right now, in our country, a lot of
females feel like it’s not going good for us, or it’s going against
us,” Skogmo said. “So, for us to be able to get a professional
female team here really gives a lot of girl power.”
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