Just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania every Thursday evening, carloads of women roll into the parking lot of the Murrysville SportsZone for a night of ball hockey. For once though, they aren’t there to cheer on their kids and husbands; they are there as players of the only all-women ball hockey league in the Pittsburgh area.

The league was organized by hockey mom and long-time Pittsburgh Penguins fan, Jen Free. Free recognized the opportunity to fulfill an unmet need for a women’s league in the male-dominated sport by reaching out to the local rink where her sons play. “There were limited opportunities for
young girls to learn the game when I was growing up. With hockey having such a huge presence in Pittsburgh, that’s changed a lot over the years and girls are playing the sport as early as age four and throughout high school and college. Beyond that, there’s not much out there for women, most
notably a lack of Learn to Play opportunities for adults, which severely limits the sport’s expansion and continues to widen the gender gap.”

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