Salt Lake City has gone all in on hockey as they support their new NHL team, the Utah Hockey Club.
The club built on that excitement in the area when it hosted the U.S. and Canada Women’s National Teams for a Rivalry Series, presented by Discover, game on Nov. 8. That stage provided the perfect opportunity to help grow the game and inspire youth enrollment, particularly among young girls in Utah.
“It’s always exciting when we can host something at the level of play of the Rivalry Series,” said Kristen Bowness, youth program director for Utah Hockey Club. “It’s huge for both girls and boys. It was really exciting to watch because the passion that the women play with is just huge. It was remarkable to be able to watch that style of play.”
Prior to the Rivalry Series game, Utah Hockey Club hosted a skills clinic with 2018 Olympic gold medalist and current U.S. Women’s National Team head scout, Haley Skarupa for girls ages 10-14. While the on-ice learning was helpful for all the players, Bowness said there’s nothing that can replicate the face-to-face interactions players were able to have. It’s just as important for the girls at the clinic to talk to Skarupa about their day at school and humanize her and her accomplishments as it is for them to learn how to dangle.
After the game, clinic attendees also had the chance to meet members of the U.S. Women’s National Team affording a chance for them to interact with the players they just watched on the ice.
That impact came as no surprise to Bowness. Even so, she said she’s still in awe of how involved the women want to be in the community and events surrounding their games.
“They see their impact and they understand, and they just want to give back. For the girls to be able to have that opportunity to be face-to-face is unmatched,” she said.
Multiple parents who attended the Rivalry Series game told Bowness they were thankful for the opportunity for their girls to see the potential different paths the sport can provide them, whether it’s NCAA or collegiate club hockey, the PWHL or the national team.
The clinic was an opportunity for girls from all around the area to get together and see that they have a community. There was a feeling of everyone supporting each other and working for a common goal, said Bowness.
“It was cool to see so many girls from all around the state and also different organizations get on the ice together and they’re all wearing Utah Hockey Club jerseys,” said Bowness.
The clinic was the embodiment of the early work Bowness and the Utah Hockey Club’s community and youth outreach staff have been doing in pursuit of the goal of being an umbrella for all programs in the state, she said.
Youth and community involvement is a big focus of the Smith Entertainment Group, which counts both the Utah Hockey Club and Utah Jazz among their holdings. The Utah Jazz have the largest junior NBA program in the county and the new NHL team has been able to access that blueprint as it works to build something similar with youth hockey.
“It’s definitely something that we want to emulate for the hockey side,” Bowness said. “To have 60,000 kids playing street hockey would be absolutely huge, and that is definitely our goal within the next five years.”
The focus on community, youth and family engagement is part of what made her current role with Utah Hockey Club so intriguing to Bowness, and she knows that the clinic was just a small part of what she and the club can accomplish and continue to pursue in the future. There’s power in having organizational support that prioritizes youth involvement and growing the game.
“Where I grew up, there weren’t any girls-specific programs, so I actually was not allowed to play hockey when I was a kid,” she said. “It’s so important to be able to give anybody that wants it the opportunity to play, no matter the gender, the age or the ability level. We want to do whatever we can do to continue to support and provide more opportunities to continue the growth of the game and develop it in every element that we can.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
