By: Hannah Branit | DU Clarion

After Olympian Kendall Coyne-Schofield took to the ice in the 2018 NHL All-Stars Skills competition, Twitter went crazy and Coyne-Schofield quickly became a trending topic. Almost overnight, the national focus landed on the world of women’s hockey. On DU’s campus, a group of women meets at the Joy Burns Ice Arena every Monday and Wednesday night. They are DU Club Women’s Ice Hockey, affectionately known as Club WIH, and they are leaving their mark on the campus.

Club WIH plays in the women’s DI league in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA). The team is a relatively young one, with the 2018-2019 season being their fifth season in the league, but they are growing quickly and competing at a high level; they qualified for the Western Women’s Collegiate Hockey League (WWCHL) regionals held in Las Vegas in their fifth year of play. With 18 women on the roster, Club WIH is growing and making its presence known.

President Kathleen Reiling has been with Club WIH for four years, and through them, she has seen the jumps that WIH has taken. From her freshman year where “we had about nine to ten girls. It was our first year playing in the league,” to this year, where they have expanded to 18 players, the growth has shown exactly how strong this team is and how much they are capable of. Reiling says that the first steps weren’t always the easiest, as they began instituting things such as starting dryland and off-ice training and increasing the number of games, going from 12 games to the 23 games that they played this year. The changes brought in more girls that had experience playing at the high school level, and to Reiling, this team is “night and day from where we started four years ago.”

Reiling has served as an officer for the club for three years and served as president for two years. Through that time, she has helped grow the team to what it is and encouraged greater competition. Teammate Claire Knowlan says, “I’m lucky to get to play on a team that’s so well organized all due to Kathleen and [vice-president] Sarah [McDonald].”

One of the things that Reiling and Knowlan are passionate about is the team’s outreach to the community. This year was the second year that they hosted the Colorado Select Girls U10 and U8 teams for a meet-and-greet. Reiling has also seen “a handful of emails from parents in the Denver, and they’ve got young daughters and are like, I really want to get my girl into hockey but she thinks that girls can’t play hockey. She thinks it’s more for boys. Can you send me your schedule, can I bring my daughter to one of your games?” They want to show girls that hockey is for anyone and the myth that only boys can play hockey is just that, a myth. Part of their passion for this stems from their own experiences as young girls who played hockey.

To girls who are on the fence about continuing hockey, Knowlan encourages them to “keep playing, keep doing it.” Reiling adds, “It’s a lot of fun, you make a lot of friends.”

In the future, Reiling hopes to see the team continue to succeed, “to gain that higher level of competition.” Stepping out of the transitional period that has not been an easy process, but for a team that has been in the WWCHL for just five years, they have already gained plenty of respect.

Those who are interested in joining Club WIH are encouraged to email the club at duclubwih@gmail.com.

Original article appeared at: https://duclarion.com/2019/02/celebrating-women-in-sports-wih-edition/