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The state of Nebraska covers 77,358 square miles. If you traversed every mile, and gallivanted across state lines, you would only find a handful of hockey clubs. It’s just a fact, hockey is not popular in the United States, let alone in the Midwest. So, options for young kids who wish to skate are already limited. For young girls, there is only one place they can go if they want to grow up to be like hockey players Hilary Knight, or “Captain Clutch” Marie-Philip Poulin. 

The Omaha Lady Jr. Lancers is a AA hockey club in Omaha, and it is the only team for girls across the state. 

Senior Anna Cacioppo grew up surrounded by hockey, “My brothers all played it when I was growing up, one day I went and tried it out,” Cacioppo said. “I had a really fun time, and I just kept playing.” 

Cacioppo has played for the Lady Jr. Lancers her entire life, it was the only place she could go. Being the only team in the state has made it hard to compete with others. 

“The only time we get to play other people is when we have to travel,” Cacioppo said. “Boys teams can go out and play on a random Wednesday night. If we want to play another team, we have to travel at least six hours,” Cacioppo said. 

Cacioppo is happy to see the sport expanding, because she hopes it will result in more girls teams in Nebraska and the Midwest so this problem can be solved. 

Another issue that has emerged from girls only having one option is that there is no higher level for those that wish to play in college. 

“Girls who want to play AAA, which is the highest level, have to go to Wisconsin, or somewhere like that, and live with a random family just so they can play,” Cacioppo said. 

Quynlan Faust is one of those girls who dreams of playing at a higher level. Faust was a sophomore at Marian up until a few weeks ago. Faust now takes classes and trains at Boston Hockey Academy, a hockey school in Boston, MA. 

“I want to play in college and unfortunately Omaha is just not the place for that,” Faust said. “There just isn’t a higher level team anywhere close, so I came to Boston.” 

Faust’s journey with hockey started later than most. She started skating when she was 11, far later than many of her teammates. 

“I wish hockey in Omaha was more serious and that there were more opportunities to play,” Faust said. ‘If you want to play in college, you can’t stay there, which is unfortunate.” 

Women are never free of misogynistic comments, especially not when they are playing sports. Women’s hockey is often accused of being “softer” than men’s hockey for a few reasons. 

In women’s hockey, fighting is strictly penalized, whereas in men’s hockey, fighting is treated like an annoyance, it doesn’t draw many penalty minutes. 

Another difference in the “physicality” of women’s and men’s hockey is that women’s hockey has strict rules against checking. This means that you cannot check someone with your entire body like you can in men’s leagues. 

Cacioppo says that this does not affect the physicality of the game. “There are so many ways to be physical and to get in sneaky hits. You may not be blowing them up and laying them out, but you are still constantly making contact and pushing them off the puck,” Cacioppo said. 

“People who say that the no checking rule makes women’s hockey “soft” just aren’t watching the game,” Cacioppo said. “In the NHL (National Hockey League), there might be some crazy hits, but it’s not essential to the game. Usually the worst players on a team are the ones known for checking people, so why is it so important for women to do it?” 

Faust disagrees, saying that she wishes they would allow checking at higher levels of women’s hockey, like in college. “It just doesn’t help with the reputation, it makes people take girls hockey less seriously,” Faust said. 

One feature of women’s hockey that differs from men’s hockey is the differences in face protection. At a certain age, men “graduate” from wearing a cage, which protects the entire face attached to their helmet, to wearing a simple visor that covers only their eyes. Women never take this leap, continuing to wear cages all the way up to the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL). 

Faust is also against never wearing visors, she believes that players in the PWHL should be allowed the option to wear visors if they want. 

“I just think it contributes to the stereotype that women’s hockey is softer and less physical, it makes zero sense that they can’t. It’s just because they are women, it’s not like they are forced to wear visors in the NHL, they just do,” Faust said. 

Not all differences are negative. Cacioppo thinks that the PWHL should add more fun and interesting rules to the game in order to make it more exciting. She thinks that this would help pull more headlines and spread the word about the expanding league. 

“I just hope it gets more recognition, so many people don’t even know about it. It’s like come on, we are women and we deserve to have our own professional leagues. The players deserve to have the same recognition and make the same money as NHL players,” Cacioppo said. 

The growth in women’s hockey can be seen, slowly but surely. In Nebraska, this means the formation of The Midwest Girls Hockey League. 

“It’s us and a few other teams, last year was the first year of us having it, and it was really awesome, our tournaments were only a few hours away and it was exciting to play somewhere closer,” Cacioppo said. 

Faust sees the same growth in the Midwest, “they have an 8U team now, which is beyond me. The numbers on the 10U team are crazy compared to what we had. When I was playing we had only 10 skaters on the team, which is not nearly enough,” Faust said. 

Seeing the game expand has been really special for both girls. Faust says she wishes this would have happened earlier, “I know I can’t go back and change the past, but I sometimes think ‘what if I had heard of hockey earlier? Would I be better?’,” Faust said. 

Cacioppo is similarly excited seeing the growth of the sport. She wants to continue to see her club grow, and she thinks it should start with a name change. Cacioppo is an advocate for renaming the 19U team to being called the Lady Lancers, not the Lady Jr. Lancers. 

“We are the only team for girls, and we are the highest age group, there should be no ‘Jr.” it should just be the Lady Lancers. The Lancers are the same age as us, we should be allowed to drop the Jr. like they do,” Cacioppo said. 

They both agree that the sport would benefit from betting marketing. The NHL is notoriously bad at marketing its players and teams, the PWHL is no better. 

“Obviously you can’t get people who don’t care about it to go out and watch it, but I think more media coverage would be good. There are so many fun plays and storylines that could easily go viral if they would just be marketed better,” Cacioppo said. 

Faust agrees, saying that she sees a lot of growth from the higher amount of media coverage on the sport for women in general. “I see a lot more things on my Instagram feed, there’s so many teams I didn’t even know existed,” Faust said. 

“It’s such an inspiration to see the sport growing nationally, it builds so much confidence in young girls, we need that,” Faust said. 

Cacioppo said the sport could be more popular if it were more affordable. “I wish everything could be cheaper, and that there could be more free opportunities for older girls to try,” Cacioppo said. 

“You just gotta try it, you make think ‘oh I can’t skate, or oh I can’t shoot with a stick’ but it’s really not that hard, you will learn how to do all that stuff, you just have to give it a chance,” Cacioppo said.