Their season almost never got started, but the Dimond-West girls' high school hockey team took home a fourth consecutive state championship Feb. 8.
It was the team’s 41st win in a row and cemented them as the most dominant in all of Alaska high school sports.
The problem wasn’t scoring goals, though, it was scoring funding and recognition: Despite the growth of girls’ and women’s hockey worldwide, financial difficulties have plagued Alaska’s high school girls' hockey league since its inception.
“In our schools, a lot of people don't even know that we have girls' teams, even though our girls' teams do a lot better than our boys' teams,” said Olivia Snelson, a senior at West Anchorage High School.
“There's just something so cool about being able to wear your school's jersey and represent your school on the ice,” she added.
Girls' high school hockey in Anchorage got started in 2003, but the Anchorage School District dissolved the program after just a decade, citing low participation. Later that year, the Scotty Gomez Foundation – founded by Alaska’s most successful hockey player, Scott Gomez – took over stewardship of the league. In 2015, the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation awarded a $100,000 grant to help pay for equipment and ice time. Last fall, the foundation provided an even larger grant to keep girls' hockey afloat.
For the last seven years, the league has been run by the Anchorage Hockey Association, which receives no financial support from the school district. There are eight teams, and each of the four Anchorage teams is made up of players from two schools. Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula each have a team, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough has two.
Still, the league has struggled to garner enough sponsorship dollars to continue, Anchorage Hockey Association Director Brian Gross said.
The grants have been a huge help, Gross said, but it hasn’t been easy.
“We've made it by the skin of our teeth a few years,” he said. “We've been short a few years. We still plan to do the fundraising that we've done in the past, but if we can spread that money out over four or five years to fill the gaps to help us meet that $80,000 bill that we have every year, it can keep the girls on the ice.”
Among recreational sports, hockey is one of the most expensive. Yearly registration fees generate about a quarter of the needed funding, and Gross said he would like to see the school district take stewardship of the league once again.
But facing a budget deficit of $111 million, the district opted to put boys hockey on the chopping block last month, along with other sports and academic programs. So the prospect of the district once again taking over girls' hockey seems unlikely, Gross said.
“Working towards? Yes. Expecting? No,” Gross said. “I think the school district is probably thrilled that they have this high school sport that’s offered and they don’t have to pay the bill.”
Gross said he’s hopeful the league can stick around to provide opportunities for more girls to play hockey, and coaches say they’re seeing a surge in younger skaters.
Participation in girls learn-to-skate events, hosted monthly by the local hockey association at the Dempsey-Anderson Ice Arena, has increased by 23% over the last four years, and team registrations are up 12% from last year.
Whitney Wigren played on the first all-girls' team in Alaska more than 30 years ago and now coaches youth skaters in Anchorage. Wigren said she was surprised by the number of girls who showed up for a tryout she held early last year.
“I looked at my registrations, and I was like, ‘I’ve only got like 10 girls signed up, this is going to be pretty rough,’” Wigren said. “The day of the event, I ended up having 47 girls register. I didn't even know there was 47 girls at the 2013 and the 2014 birth ages. So going to the rink, I was totally humbled.”
At a learn-to-skate event in early February, girls ages 4 to 10 donned glitter and tutus and played games like tag and keep-away while learning skills from older kids.
“Hockey is mainly dominated by boys, which, you know, is totally fine,” Wigren said. ”But there's also a space for girls, and that space is growing.”
Dimond-West standout forward Tana Carlson said she’s hopeful she’ll be able to continue playing hockey in college. If she’s successful, she’ll join a long list of Alaska skaters who have excelled in college and beyond.
Wasilla’s Darci Matson and Kaylee Merrill earned All-American honors in 2023, and Claire DeGeorge of Anchorage won a national championship with Ohio State University in 2022. DeGeorge currently plays for the Montreal Victoire of the Professional Women’s Hockey League and plans to host a hockey camp in Anchorage with Strong Girls United in August.
DeGeorge follows Anchorage’s Zoe Hickel and Palmer’s Kerry Weiland as Alaskans who have played professionally. Weiland won a silver medal with Team USA at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
“There are some really good women hockey players here in Alaska, and it'd be nice to have a lot of people recognize that before they're gone and don't read about them until they're on a Division I team or on an Olympic team,” said Gross, the hockey association director. “See them here when they're in high school”
Carlson, now a four-time state champion, is one of the standout players on the Dimond-West team. She said she was grateful for the chance to represent her school on the ice and wants to see more girls have the same opportunity she did.
“I'm so happy to be leaving behind that legacy for girls to come, for the girls I'm playing with right now, and it's honestly been just a great experience these past four years,” Carlson said. “I think we just need to keep holding that spirit — that girls' hockey spirit — and coming out here and just battling for the girls' hockey in Alaska.”
