Carving out the path for women’s hockey

As the Montreal Victoire head into game four of the first round of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) playoffs tonight (Friday) they’ll have the support of many young hockey fans behind them - especially from the young Kahnawa’kehró:non here in town, who one day want to follow in the footsteps of the pro players.

“Hockey is my life,” said 15-year-old Ryan Stacey, who currently plays U18AA hockey with the Suroit Rockettes.

“It’s been my life for as long as I remember. It’s brought me different places, it’s made me so many new friends. Right now, I would never want to stop.”

Stacey is one of many young women in Kahnawake who are making a name for themselves on the ice in town and beyond. Like many, she’s inspired by the PWHL, which launched its inaugural season in 2024. Right now, eight teams exist across the franchise, with the league announcing the second phase of its expansion this week.

The league has continued to grow since its launch, with more than a million fans turning out across all regular season games, and average attendance across all primary home venues growing by 35 per cent in the 2025-26 season.

Fans are hungry for women’s hockey, and according to Marie-Christine Boucher, the PWHL’s senior director of team business operations, the league is determined to open doors for future generations of players who aspire to be on the ice.

Boucher, who is Wendat, said she especially wants to find ways to support the development of Indigenous players.

“This is only the beginning in my eyes,” Boucher said. “Women’s sports are growing right now. There’s a ton of opportunities, and we want to see more young women playing, we want to see more young women getting leadership roles in sports.”

Right now, the league is prioritizing building relationships with Indigenous communities, by working on events like hockey clinics and growing partnerships with Indigenous performers - in March, dancers and singers from Kahnawake attended the Montreal Victoire’s Indigenous Celebration Game at Place Bell, and a group of young players from the Kahnawake Minor Hockey Association (KMHA) were given tickets and invited to meet the team after the game.

The league is also working on mentorship programs targeting under-represented demographics, with the goal of encouraging more girls to take up hockey who might not otherwise have the opportunity to play. Those mentorship programs also specifically cater to girls in grades eight and nine, which is the age that sees the biggest drop-off for girls playing the sport.

“It’s about keeping girls in the game,” Boucher said. “They can dream big, just by having those opportunities.”

One of the biggest names in the league right now is Abby Roque, who plays for the Montreal Victoire. Roque, who is Ojibwe from Wahnapitae First Nation, has been especially vocal about keeping Indigenous girls motivated to pursue their dreams on the ice, and has been building connections with Kahnawake over the past several months.

Most recently, Roque hosted a hockey clinic at the Kahnawake Sports Complex with fellow Victoire players Kaitlin Willoughby and Dara Greig and spoke directly with groups of girls’ hockey players at Kahnawake Survival School (KSS).

Roque said that for her, visibility means everything.

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe you can do it if you haven’t seen somebody else do it,” she said. “I think being able to see other people playing in the pro league, playing at that level, it gives young girls who are dreaming of that the hope that they can also do it.”

Locally, girls’ participation in hockey has continued to grow. Kwaronhienhawi Jacobs, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK)’s general manager of sports and recreation, said that around 60 girls currently play hockey from Kahnawake.

“If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, we would have maybe had a handful, it’s a huge, huge change,” said Jacobs, who noted that she’s seeing parents sign their girls up for hockey at younger ages each year.

“There used to be nowhere for girls to go and look up to. Now that the PWHL is here it’s a whole new ball game, it’s a whole new opening for these girls, and it’s only up from here.”

She and former MCK grand chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer have been building a personal relationship with Roque, something that both say they hope will continue inspiring girls in the community.

Sky-Deer, a former professional football player, said that as the league grows, young players in Kahnawake will have more role models to look up to as they forge their own careers on the ice.

“(Roque) is an example to our girls that you could play professional hockey in our backyard, in Montreal,” she said. “Women’s sports is here to stay, they’re building and making a name for themselves.”

The PWHL provides opportunities that some of Kahnawake’s most successful players didn’t have growing up. One of those players is Brooke Stacey, who previously skated with the Montreal Force in the Premier Hockey Federation, a precursor to the PWHL. She went on to participate in training camp with the Montreal Victoire and was placed on their reserve roster in 2024 before stepping away from playing professionally.

“The PWHL is such a huge opportunity, it’s amazing to see. I hope it keeps growing, and I hope parents expose their daughters to it, put it on the TV, bring them to games, tell them how serious it is and tell them that it’s something you can aspire to be in,” she said.

She said that Kahnawake is full of promising young players that can make it in the league - especially as more teams are added with expansion.

“There has to be future generations of players to fill those spots, and how cool would it be for a bunch of girls from Kahnawake to be in there?” she said.

Nineteen-year-old Shyanna Day also played throughout her childhood and teens, and said that she would have loved to have the PWHL to set her sights on from a young age.

“Sometimes it’s a little upsetting to think about, a little bittersweet, because I feel like it’s too late,” said Day. “I’m really happy to see it for the younger generation because I know they’re pushing hard, these girls are really going to make it.”

Nehirah Mayo is currently one of Kahnawake’s youngest players, skating with the U7 Mohawks. She will grow up having the PWHL to look up to as a potential next step, something her father, Owen Mayo, said he’s grateful for as he motivates his daughter in her first seasons on the ice.

“My daughter is obsessed with hockey. For me, all I want her to do is have fun, learn things about herself, and for her to give her best every time she gets on the ice,” he said.

The success of the PWHL has a knock-on effect, Mayo said. As more girls are inspired by the league, they themselves inspire younger players locally.

“I’m beyond impressed with how well our girls are doing in hockey. We have so many girls playing in double letters, it’s amazing. I hope they all believe in themselves and realize early that you get what you put in,” he said. “We are talented people.”

Day said that she and her friends started playing hockey when there weren’t many girls on the ice - seeing the growth of the support for girls in Kahnawake has meant a lot to her, as she sees the next generation carry the torch and aspire to take the sport further.

“There’s all these girls that aren’t afraid to play their sport and dominate at it, and I’m really, really proud to see all these girls from Kahnawake out there right now,” she said.

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