At the 2025 Girls’ and Women’s Hockey Leadership Summit in Buffalo, N.Y., USA Hockey spotlighted recruitment and retention as key factors in growing the women’s sport and producing more high-quality athletes in the future.
“We’ve had tremendous growth across the United States at all age levels of the girls’ game,” said Kristen Sagaert, director of girls’ hockey for USA Hockey. “Looking to hopefully break 100,000 women and girls registered with USA Hockey this season.”
The Summit, themed around empowerment and connection, included speakers, leadership workshops and networking opportunities, all during the Rivalry Series weekend games between the U.S. and Canada. With over 60 people in attendance, the event attracted hockey administrators, clubs and team volunteers.
Alicia Pelton, sports consultant and speaker, took the summit stage to share data points on the growth of girls and women in hockey and all sports, and she shared “what it looks like to support their growth and what it takes to keep the growth going into adult hockey.”
“By coming to this event, they felt reinvigorated, and they’ve explained that to us about how they now feel they have extra energy and extra support to continue volunteering and supporting back where they’re from,” Sagaert said. “We’ve had some people that have come to this event [who’ve] switched from having a full-time job and volunteering in hockey to switching to wanting to work in hockey full time.”
Attendees shared their best practices for attracting more female athletes to their clubs and teams, including offering programs that allow players who have graduated to return and volunteer their time or work as coaches and offering free learn to skate programs.
“Now, it’s seven, eight, nine new ideas of how they cannot only grow the game but engage new female coaches in the game and things like that,” Sagaert said.
