Jennifer Gardiner used to get requested about plans for the longer term.
Her reply was easy — turn into an expert hockey participant.
“However that wasn’t actually an choice,” she recalled. “So it grew to become, ‘What do you wish to be on the aspect when you’re taking part in hockey?’”
Ohio State’s Jennifer Gardiner, proper, celebrates with teammates Teagan Grant (5) and Hadley Hartmetz (6) after scoring in the course of the second interval of an NCAA faculty ladies’s Frozen 4 semifinal hockey recreation towards Yale Friday, March 18, 2022, in State School, Pa.
AP Picture/Gary M. Baranec
With no sustainable North American ladies’s circuit and the accompanying aggressive salaries, there must be a second profession to help Gardiner’s ardour. That’s what gamers earlier than her had accomplished to chase their icy goals.
Instances have modified. And quick.
Set to compete within the NCAA Girls’s Frozen 4 starting Friday, the Ohio State captain from Surrey, B.C., has a eager eye on the Skilled Girls’s Hockey League’s banner first season.
A fifth-year senior working towards a grasp’s diploma in sports activities administration, Gardiner sees a future the place 100 per cent of her consideration is on the game she loves.
“Really having the ability to focus in your craft,” she mentioned. “I’ve a objective of taking part in for the nationwide staff and making it to the Olympics.
“To have the ability to play hockey as my full-time job and dedicate my total life to that the following couple of years is one thing I’m actually excited for.”
Gardiner and her teammates will first be seeking to safe this system’s second U.S. nationwide championship in ladies’s hockey after successful in 2022 and ending runners-up final yr.
No. 1 Ohio State will tackle No. 4 Clarkson in Friday’s semifinals in Durham, N.H., earlier than No. 2 Wisconsin meets No. 3 Colgate. The title recreation goes Sunday.
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There will likely be loads of north-of-the-border content material. Clarkson’s roster consists of 22 Canadians, adopted by Colgate with 14, Ohio State with six, and Wisconsin with 5.
“My final match of faculty hockey,” Gardiner mentioned.
However not the tip of the highway.
The six-team PWHL has burst onto the sports activities scene since its January launch with an modern, forward-thinking method to the sport that’s been successful with followers.
“An thrilling time for ladies’s hockey,” mentioned fifth-year Colgate ahead Danielle Serdachny. “Loads of gamers have objectives and goals.”
The Edmonton product added the upstart PWHL has been “the discuss of our staff” this season.
“Positively makes me curious,” mentioned Serdachny, tied for fourth in NCAA scoring with 61 factors in 39 video games. “I’m simply making an attempt to concentrate on the match and my ultimate faculty video games, however what they’ve there’s tremendous thrilling.”
Canada ahead Danielle Serdachny (92) and Japan defender Kanami Seki (7) battle for the puck throughout third interval IIHF WomenÕs World Hockey Championship hockey motion in Brampton, Ont., on Saturday, April 8, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Clarkson’s Nicole Gosling and a few of her teammates have made the 90-minute drive from Potsdam, N.Y., to Ottawa for a few PWHL contests.
“Every little thing is ramping up so fast,” mentioned the defender from London, Ont. “That’s what loads of the women taking part in within the league proper now have been pushing for.
“They lastly had their voice heard.”
Colgate head coach Greg Fargo, in the meantime, has heard plenty of PWHL chatter within the NCAA.
“What a chance,” he mentioned. “It couldn’t come at a greater time for a few of our graduates.”
The Kingston, Ont., product mentioned the league, which can maintain its second-ever draft in June, can be a big enhance to U.S. faculty sports activities and ladies’s hockey in any respect ranges.
“I’ll watch a PWHL recreation with my eight-year-old daughter,” Fargo mentioned. “That has an impression on how she sees the sport and the alternatives that will likely be on the market.
“It’s going to develop our recreation tremendously. It’s not simply each 4 years surrounding the Olympics. It’s going to be each season.”
Clarkson head coach Matt Desrosiers performed professionally after his NCAA profession ended. He couldn’t think about holding down a full-time job and pursuing that dream abruptly.
“Now they’ve one, singular focus,” mentioned the native of Fort Erie, Ont. “They don’t need to make robust selections so far as shifting on with their careers in the event that they nonetheless have a chance to play professional.
“They’ve earned it. They deserve it.”
These gamers embody ladies at present within the PWHL who fought for a united North American league on stable monetary footing – and previous generations that scraped by in hopes of a greater future.
“The explanation it’s all come to life,” Serdachny mentioned. “All of the credit score goes to them.”
Gardiner is reassured the tip of her NCAA journey isn’t the tip of a viable hockey path.
“I’m very passionate,” she mentioned. “Excited to proceed to my profession.
“And concentrate on hockey.”
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