‘It opened a lot of doors for me that I didn’t see’: How Sidney Crosby’s Little Penguins sparked hockey aspirations for women in Western Pennsylvania

This article was written by Kelsey Surmacz, who is part of the Professional Hockey Writers Association x To Hockey With Love Mentorship Program. This program pairs aspiring writers with established members of the association across North America to create opportunities for marginalized people that do not traditionally get published on larger platforms covering hockey. 

To Hockey With Love is a weekly newsletter covering a range of topics in hockey – from the scandals of the week to providing a critical analysis of the sport. 

_____

Through the front doors at Mt. Lebanon Public Ice Center, beyond the main rink, sat a tiny, singular zone-sized miniature sheet of ice not large enough to host gruelling practices for the dozen or so high school teams in the area in 2008. Teeming with wide-eyed, rosy faces, all ages five to nine — some wearing hockey skates for the very first time and struggling to stay on their feet — Western Pennsylvania children were participating in the inaugural season of Sidney Crosby’s new Little Penguins program. The same familiar scene played out at several rinks in the Pittsburgh area, with one of them playing host to now-NHL player Logan Cooley, third overall pick by the Arizona Coyotes in the 2022 Entry Draft.

At that tiny rink in a Pittsburgh suburb, one of those kids was Mackenzie King, a girl from down the street with a newfound aspiration to play the game of hockey; not just for those few weeks and with the notoriously free equipment that Crosby’s program offers, but for the foreseeable future. 

Now, as a Division I women’s hockey player for College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, it is a dream realized — and one that came full-circle in more ways than one.

Crosby’s influence in Western Pennsylvania has transcended the popularity of the Penguins. It has also helped grow participation in hockey, with his Little Penguins program starting many girls on a path toward pursuing their on-ice aspirations. 

Without the program as a springboard for higher opportunities, these aspirations may never have been a real possibility for King and many other women in Western Pennsylvania. 

“It’s crazy,” she said. “I got free equipment at the age of five, and I’m getting free equipment now. Little Penguins paid for my first, and Holy Cross will likely pay for my last.”

A humble beginning

For any hockey player, it’s hard to forget that first time lacing up skates, struggling down the walkway to the door, and finally hitting that fresh sheet of ice (oftentimes, literally). King had a couple of years of “toe pick” experience in figure skating — so no problem, right?

Well, not exactly.

Her figure skating prowess in tow, King was confident she could skate better than the other “amateurs” who attended the lesson. She found herself face-down almost immediately — as well as often — and falling over her toes. She grew so frustrated the first day that it brought her to tears.

“After I put on those hockey skates,” she laughed, “I realized I had to figure it out.”

Even though the bulk of King’s development in hockey occurred over the past decade — in a time where women’s hockey has been growing rapidly and is becoming more of a staple in the girls’ sports scene as a whole — it didn’t come without its challenges. That was especially the case in those earlier years, when hockey was largely still considered a boys’ sport.

King probably never would have gotten her start in hockey had the Little Penguins program never offered learn-to-play at the rink that was just down the road. Seeing a pop-up for Crosby’s then-new program at their neighborhood rink — and learning cost for the equipment would be covered — made the decision quite easy for her parents, Dave and Kari King.

“If [the program] wasn’t so accessible for my family, and we couldn’t just go down the road for me to learn how to play hockey, I probably would have just kept figure skating,” Kenzie King said.

Ease of access created more opportunities for other girls to take a track that diverged from playing boys’ hockey. After participating in the Little Penguins program, King did go on to higher levels of learn-to-play and eventually to boys’ mite hockey with the Mt. Lebanon Hornets at that same venue over the next five years. But before she knew it, a door had opened to begin playing at an elite level of women’s hockey in the area.

After getting cut from a few boys’ teams for “not being big enough,” King said she was recruited by the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite Girls team, with whom she won five Mid-American District Championships. After captaining that team for three seasons, Pens Elite Girls founder Kathy Pippy aided King’s recruitment to play Division I hockey at a small college in the middle of Massachusetts.

“It’s crazy because Holy Cross wasn’t even on my radar,” King said. “I would never even have considered it, gone up and visited, or taken a look at it.” 

Although Pippy’s connections opened up a lot of possibilities for King, Pens Elite may never have even been a possibility for her if not for the Little Penguins program. She would’ve been behind, not ahead.

“Little Penguins was like getting tutored before kindergarten,” King said. “I felt prepared for kindergarten and first grade, and because of it, I was already better than some of the boys.”

Photo credit: The Holy Cross Crusaders

A crucial growth segment

Since its inception in 2008, the Little Penguins program has produced a number of Division I athletes, including Cooley. Over the past 15 years, localized women’s hockey as a whole has experienced significant growth.

Ladd Wagner of USA Hockey said girls hockey — and girls going on to higher levels of hockey — has increased threefold. Tier-II programs, traditionally a notch below Tier-I programs in terms of talent, are growing rapidly, and the talent level between the tiers is beginning to blur. The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) has added more than 70 women’s programs in the last eight years.

Western Pennsylvania has enjoyed greater growth than many regions. There are currently 1,299 female hockey players in the Greater Pittsburgh area, with the bulk of players in the developmental ages of 9-14. Pippy, who still resides in Western Pennsylvania and founded an organization called Premier Ice Prospects to give girls optimal access to opportunities in hockey, explained that not only has the number of girls playing at higher levels of hockey increased as well, but also that the market itself has drastically changed.

Pittsburgh — perceived as a leading non-traditional hockey market — is now producing similar numbers of higher-level girls’ hockey players in comparison to known “hockey hotspots” like Minnesota, New York, and Boston. Even rising stars in women’s hockey, such as Team USA trailblazer Laila Edwards, have come from different parts of the country to play at more competitive levels of women’s hockey in and around Pittsburgh.

“If there were no youth programs,” Pippy said, “we wouldn’t have Pens Elite Girls. And this is because Little Penguins continues to feed the program.”

There is a heap of societal factors that have helped contribute to the growth of women’s hockey. An important aspect is young girls now have role models in women’s hockey. There are more “pink helmets,” as King put it. 

More opportunities. More “blurring of the line,” she said, between girls hockey and figure skating. 

No one asks why little girls are playing hockey anymore. The more women there are within the sport for girls to idolize, the more the line will also start to blur between men’s and women’s hockey. 

Pippy believes true “results” of programs like Little Penguins are beginning to show with the program’s first participants old enough to act as those role models — especially in youth camps, where participation between boys and girls is becoming more and more evenly split.

“Girls now have female role models within the sport, and a lot of these ‘role models’ started right where they did,” Pippy said. “And now, women like Kenzie are helping run these youth camps.”

It also helps that women’s hockey is taking center stage at the professional level. Both Pippy and King had the chance to attend the first-ever PWHL game in Toronto on New Year’s Day, when New York defeated Toronto by a score of 4-0. As special as the moment was, it wasn’t what garnered King’s attention.

As she took a good look around the bowl of Mattamy Athletic Centre, she marveled at the number of little girls that looked just like her as a kid. She noticed not just a few smiling, awed faces as specks in the crowd, but entire cohorts of girls. In that moment, she thought about her Holy Cross games, where those same crowds of inspired young girls come to cheer and watch her play.

“It’s very emotional because these girls are going home and telling their parents that it’s their dream to be in my position, or in the position of the women in the PWHL,” King said. “I used to be a ‘blue line buddy’ at games. And now, I have a blue line buddy with me at the start of games.”

A “full-circle” influence

Pippy has put a lot of work into growing girls hockey in Western Pennsylvania, and the fruits of her labor in a player like King never would have been possible without the work the Pittsburgh Penguins – and Crosby himself – have put into growing youth hockey as a whole. The association of Crosby’s name with the youth programs has helped spark this growth; but his direct involvement takes it up a whole other level, motivating kids and their families to invest more time, energy, and commitment to hockey.

“It resonates when you have a leader in the community like Crosby who wants to grow the sport as much as possible,” Pippy said. “And he wants to make it accessible for everyone.”

It also helps that the Penguins have been playing at a high level for so long, and essentially, as long as Crosby has been around. Team success helps to spark interest in a sport that, otherwise, might fall under the radar in a football-crazed city like Pittsburgh. 

It gets kids invested. It gets parents invested. And, in turn, this success has not only ensured that a program like Little Penguins has such broad reach to so many rinks in Western Pennsylvania, but it has also allowed the program to extend to all other cities with an NHL organization. 

Pippy happens to know nearly all of the people involved with the girls’ programs in every NHL city. She said no other organization rivals what the Penguins have done to invest time and money into growing youth hockey among segments of the population that wouldn’t otherwise have opportunities in hockey — girls and minorities, in particular.

“The Penguins’ organization is the best parent organization by far,” she said. “And it’s not even close.”

As one of those players who benefitted from the Penguins’ youth hockey outreach, King has already taken hold of resulting opportunities and started on her desired career track toward coaching. To this day, that small rink in Mt. Lebanon still brings about that familiar feeling of nostalgia when King gives private learn-to-skate lessons to young kids. 

“It’s very full-circle because,” King said, “I learned how to skate there, I played on my first boys hockey team there, my little sister learned how to play there — and now I’m teaching kids how to skate there.”

Over a decade and a half after that first learn-to-play cohort with Little Penguins, she is still grateful for the one-of-a-kind program that helped shape her as a hockey player.

“[Little Penguins] opened a lot of doors for me that I didn’t see,” she said. “The fun has never ended. I never thought I’d play a Division I sport. Without this program, I would’ve just been glossed over. And now, the same little girl who had toe picks and didn’t know how to skate is helping shape a future in hockey for other little girls.”

She smiled.

“It’s surreal, really.”

_____

More from the PHWA x To Hockey With Love Mentorship Program

• Across the Pacific: Jordan Spence’s journey to the NHL
• ‘No one thought he’d make it’: How Alex Laferriere fought his way to the Los Angeles Kings
• Lasting Impact: How Jon Merrill’s LGBTQ+ allyship prevails
• Blind Hockey: More than just a developing sport
• NHL Digital Rink Board Advertisements Pose Health Concern for Certain Fans