Latest / Rinkside Rundown / Chloe Glass on the Gaps in Women's Hockey and Founding the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy

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Chloe Glass on the Gaps in Women's Hockey and Founding the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy · Rinkside Rundown

• speaker-0: It really started with, well, if I were to put something like this together, I wonder what people are out there that we could assemble because I really wanted it to be an all-women's team and I wanted it to be specifically hockey. And the other part of that is not just having these experts in their fields, but also having people who can serve as good role models for girls hockey players. speaker-1: Hello and welcome back to Rinkside Rundown, the podcast that brings you inside the world of women's hockey one story at a time. I'm your host, Chris Sinclair, and today I'm excited to be joined by Chloe Glass, founder of the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy. Chloe, welcome to the show. How are you doing? speaker-0: Thank you. I'm good. Happy to be here. speaker-1: Yes, absolutely. We were talking just before we started here that this feels long overdue. And I'm very, very excited to of course learn about your playing career, which we're going to get into in just a moment. But the incredible work that you're doing, you and your team are doing with the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy. So let's go ahead and dive in. And we always start every episode learning your origin story. So let's go back to ⁓ your beginning in hockey. You grew up in ⁓ Bloomingdale, ⁓ New Jersey. What first injured what first ⁓ drew you, if you will, to the game of hockey and and made you want to stick with it as you got older? speaker-0: I give all the credit to that to my dad. ⁓ he played on an adult league team and I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And I have one older brother, and as soon as he was old enough to hit the ice, I was like, All right, when can I start? I cannot wait to start playing hockey. I have three brothers who play, so between the four of us and my dad. It's just something that is in our family and I was so excited to hit the ice and that love for the game really hasn't stopped since. It's just grown. speaker-1: Do you remember thinking back to those early days and your maybe your junior career as well? Do you remember like what what some of your fondest memories of? Like was it, you know, I I hear a lot like, you know, the just like, you know, being out on the open ice, the speed, the like the the wind against my face, scoring goals, making big saves, being around teammates, being around friends. Do you remember what some of those earliest memories of the sport were for you? speaker-0: think most of my fondest hockey memories weren't necessarily defined by the game I was playing. Like I cannot remember the tournament we won or what the score of a game was. I but I do remember who I was with. You know, I had the opportunity to play for some really awesome coaches. Have teammates that I played with on U 14 who are still some of my best friends to this day. ⁓ and of course, as I've mentioned, any time that I've been able to get on the ice with my brothers and my dad has been some of my fondest memories. speaker-1: Yeah, well, the big smile on your face as you were telling that story would suggest that's still absolutely a fun ⁓ one of your fondest memories for sure. as your career or as you progressed through your career, you ended up going to ⁓ Lebanon Valley College. So I was wondering if you could talk about how that time period really shaped you into the player you became, of course, but certainly now the person you are. speaker-0: Yeah, I had a really cool college hockey experience because the year above my freshman year was the first time that LVC had a women's hockey team. So the when I was a freshman, the sophomore team was the inaugural season. they only had a head coach for the first, I think, two weeks of that season. ⁓ then my year They had just hired a head coach full time. And it felt like that's when we really got things rolling. So I had an interesting hockey experience in that respect, but I felt like we really bonded as a team because we got to decide what kind of program we wanted to be. And even though especially the first year we obviously didn't have a winning record, but it was like it just everything that we did felt more important than that season or than that team that we were on. It was like, how can we do things in a way that, you know, we got to set traditions that are still in place now. And that was the first time that we would ever do things like that or when we would experience conflict as a team. It's like, okay, well what kind of program do we want to be when stuff like this comes up? And in that way I felt like, especially in my undergrad years, I felt like I learned a lot of leadership and a lot about how to be a good teammate and just give feedback in different ways to each other. Like I felt like our team was very close and was able to talk to each other about different things like that because that was our goal was we wanted to leave a legacy and make sure that every year after we left was going to be better than when we were there. And the program certainly has grown so much since when I was there. speaker-1: Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned that because I I recently spoke with ⁓ the captain at the University of Delaware, the Blue Hens, who are a brand new program as well. And Caitlin mentioned about how that experience there were a lot of things that it taught her, but a lot of things also that surprised her about herself in terms of how much of a better leader she she was than she maybe expected that she was, how much better she was at helping to. not necessarily deal with conflicts, but you know, conflict resolution, of course, being a captain, that's something that is a part of that role. Could you maybe also being a yourself at that point, being a part of a brand new program, could you maybe talk about the things that maybe it taught you about yourself that you weren't expecting or that it highlighted about you that you also weren't expecting? speaker-0: Yeah, I definitely thought I was a non confrontational person and ⁓ I mean being in a group that was so open with each other and i it felt easy to talk to my teammates about things and then my senior year I became a captain and it felt like Not that I didn't have a choice, but I just knew that every time I confronted an issue with a team, I was doing it because I felt like that confrontation was going to be better because of it. ⁓ and that was something that I really learned about myself throughout college and now it's become so much easier in my adult life to just it's better to just speak your mind, you know. ⁓ and you can talk to people when you have conflict and tell them how you feel without it necessarily having to end in conflict and you can say and I think that's also part of just growing up like and being you know, going to college like I was eighteen when I got there. And I think that was just a life lesson that I learned that I learned a lot better from being on a team. was just how to deal with different people. you know, and you're on a team with I don't know, fifteen to twenty different people and you might not like everyone, but you love them because they're your teammates and that's your family. ⁓ so you not that you have to find a way to make w it work, but you kind of do. ⁓ so I definitely learned a lot about just like confrontation. and leadership and just what it means to actually be a good teammate and legitimately be there for somebody if they need you. So speaker-1: Mm-hmm. and as we continue jour ⁓ the journey through your hockey career following college, you had the opportunity to play overseas in Germany. So, first of all, what was that experience like for you and ⁓ being a w so ⁓ I was gonna say being away from home, ⁓ being so far away from home. ⁓ what was that experience like for you? And and as ⁓ we just talked about in terms of lessons, what did that experience also teach you about yourself? speaker-0: Ooh, it was being far away from home was really tough. ⁓ it was an incredible experience. I am so, so happy that I did that. I felt like I learned a lot just about I don't know, it it definitely deepened my appreciation for hockey because I had no idea what hockey in Germany was going to be like. And in so many ways it's so similar as it is here and in so many ways it's so different. And something as small as ⁓ the neutral zone there is slightly smaller and not by much, but you would be surprised when you're used to the neutral zone being a certain size, how many times you'd be off size. And it's like, sorry guys working on this. but it was really cool. It was such an amazing experience. I had an awesome coach speaker-1: Did it again. speaker-0: My team was fantastic and you know, even though I was far away from home, there were so many people there who welcomed me into their homes, made me feel like family, ⁓ and it was just a great time, ⁓ overall. Yeah. speaker-1: So th following that, I mean, ⁓ y you ultimately ⁓ ended up making the decision to move from ⁓ you know, not be not being a player on the ice, ⁓ which is never an easy decision, especially for an athlete to say, you know, I'm gonna do something different. Could you maybe talk about what that what that process was like for you to determine, you know, whether you were going to continue playing hockey? or whether you were gonna start pursuing something different and pursuing ultimately what ended up being a career involved in hockey, just not in the way that it end that maybe you thought initially. speaker-0: Yeah, it was it was really difficult at first. So I didn't finish my season in Germany because I didn't get a visa. So I came home in December and it was I've never not finished a hockey season before and I've never not known what I was going to do the next season. So it was really difficult transitioning out of playing and just not knowing what my next move was. So thankfully ⁓ I got a full time job in PA, which I love. And one of my best friends who I played with in college, who I'm actually working with now, ⁓ was the hockey director for York Devils and it was like, Okay, well, coaching could be cool. It wasn't really something that I had my sights set on, but she really enjoyed it. She practically built the girls' program there. and so I was able to coach with her and that was an awesome experience. I had coached for the U U sixteen girls team and she had coached U19, and then we were assistant coaches for each other. And that really surprised me how much I loved being on the ice during practices, being on the bench for games. It was a very different experience from playing, but I really felt like we had an impact on the players that we coached. for a couple of different reasons, but I just loved the fact that Taylor, who I coached with, Taylor and I were both twenty-two and twenty-three. We were coaching U fourteen through U19 girls who were all looking to play in college, and they got to have two female head coaches who had just been through it, I felt like they genuinely looked up to us and when we talked to them, really they really took it seriously because we had just gone through what they were looking to do. And it was awesome because on our U19 team, don't quote me, but I think we had about 10 girls graduating that year. And out of the 10, we had eight of them go play on an NCAA team, something like that. So it was it was pretty crazy how many of them continue on to play in college, but I it it felt good. It was it was a really cool time. speaker-1: The your journey has ultimately led you to founding the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy. So before we get into the incredible work that you and your team, as I mentioned off the top, are doing in this space, I wanted to learn just, you know, what was the motivation? What was the inspiration? What was the drive to do this and to create something from scratch like this. speaker-0: When I switched over from player to coach, I had a completely new perspective on the game and what's important as far as developing your on ice skills. And there were things that I knew would make me better as a player when I was the one on the ice, but it just the mindset on that completely shifted when I was coaching and, you know, trying to work with this group of girls. So things like nutrition I would try and talk to my players about, but I always felt like I wanted them to talk to a nutritionist or things like the mental side of the game, which I think I really struggled with when I was playing, ⁓ and could have benefited from talking to someone like a mental performance coach. ⁓ that was something that I wanted for my players. And in some ways I think I wanted it more for them than I realized that I wanted for myself, if that makes sense. and so when I stepped away from coaching, I still had this idea in the back of my head, like I really want to bring something to girls hockey players where they have these resources that are accessible on things like nutrition. sports psychology, you know, even things like injury prevention. And I want them to have the best people available to talk to them about it because it's great if there's coaches talking about it, but the coaches might not always realize, you know, know what they're talking about or which was my experience. I would try and talk to them about certain things, but it's like I wasn't completely sure. And now that I've been working with Our team, I've realized a lot of the information that I think I passed on to my players might not have been correct because in what I was looking at, a lot of the info out there is for adult athletes and a lot of it is for adult male athletes. So the information that we're bringing to our players is specifically for female youth athletes. ⁓ and I think that that's super important because there is our bodies are so different and there's a lot of things that girls players should be aware of now, you know, like things like their menstrual cycles, you know, nobody talk to me as a player about that or nutri you know, different things like when you should be eating things at certain times because Girls have shorter recovery times than men. So different stuff like that. That was kind of where everything started, was just I had this idea in the back of my mind. And as the wheels were turning, I was thinking about this, like, okay, how can we bring this to girls players? It really started with, well, if I were to put something like this together, I wonder what people are out there that we could assemble because I really wanted it to be an all women's team. And I wanted it to be specifically hockey. And the other part of that is not just having these experts in their fields, but also having people who can serve as good role models for girls' hockey players. And with that, ⁓ so I did a bunch of research, try to find people out there, and I was able to assemble this awesome team. And before I really had anything planned or started, they just loved the idea and the vision and were like, okay. Like, we're on board, just let me know. ⁓ so it's been cool how everyone is kind of bought in and is on the same page that we're just here to serve the next generation of hockey players in whatever way makes the most sense for them. So speaker-1: And what I find root to be really fascinating is and I think we're starting to see this shift in in sports in general, ⁓ but of course in this space where we're realizing that to be a great athlete means more than just what you're doing on whatever playing surface, on the ice. It's the prep, it's the nutrition, it's the mental side of the game as well. The mental side has plays such a big part. in how you are, how you perform on the ice. And I found that to be a particular emphasis of a lot of the workshops that you're putting on is the mental side of the game. And so, you know, maybe if we could maybe dive in a little bit more specifically into some of the more common mental challenges that and pressures that in particular female players are feeling. And I feel like you're a great person to be able to answer this because you've seen both from a coaching side as well as from a player side and as well of course as your current role. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I can say one thing that our coaches has have talked a lot about that I wish someone had talked to me about was having a bounce back routine. So I think a lot of players struggle with when they make a mistake, it's such a knock to your confidence that it's hard to flip that switch where you're not getting in your head about, you know. having negative self talk and beating yourself down where if you make one mistake, it's hard to get out of that mindset and then not make any more mistakes. So ⁓ different things like that, ⁓ self talk is a big one. ⁓ and then also I think another thing that is affecting a lot of players today is comparison and confidence. I think it's difficult for any athlete no matter the sport, but I do feel like social media is having a very big impact on things like comparison and just overall confidence because now girls aren't just comparing themselves to their teammates or their opponents. It's people they see online who they've never met before. speaker-1: When you're looking at your slate of workshops, your slate of webinars, what goes into ⁓ the decision process and timing in terms of which topics are covered and then which maybe aren't either covered now or maybe they're pushed to another time further down the road? How do you make those decisions? speaker-0: it has been driven by the parents and coaches that I've talked to. So I'm always looking for feedback after our workshops to know, okay, what what questions do you have after this? What did you learn from this? What are you looking for next time? ⁓ and just in general, ⁓ figuring out ways to connect our coaches with the players, coaches and parents, a lot of what we've been doing has been driven by the parents and the players. So when people reach out saying, ⁓ I'm interested in this topic, typically it's just a matter of reaching out to one of my coaches and saying, Hey, are you interested in covering this? Do you think this is something that you could talk on? Let's figure out a time. ⁓ and especially for the virtual workshops, it's been a great way to reach people from all over the place. And it's been a great way to make our resources accessible. Our last virtual workshop we did was $20 and they got an hour and a half of Dr. Katie, who is amazing and was able to provide so much information and helpful resources to them. so it's that's how it's been so far as far as doing the virtual workshops especially. I would like to continue to schedule those maybe one at at least one every month and just continue on with that because it it has been a good way to reach people. speaker-1: One of the other things here that I would like to talk about, of course, we have a few more things I would love to talk about, but one of those things is I I know for me the uncertainty of what a workshop looks and feels like would be probably maybe the first ⁓ certainly the second barrier for me in terms of entry, because I would be nervous in terms of what to expect. Now I know, of course, virtual versus in person, it's gonna look different depending on which kind of setting you're in. But could it speaking generally, could you share what a typical kind of experience ⁓ in one of these workshops would look like for a for any participant? speaker-0: So the mental ones we treat more as an interactive workshop. So depending on how many people are on there, we might do breakout rooms where people are talking to each other. But I know the last workshop that Dr. Katie ran, she treated it more like a team workshop. So she would talk a little bit about some of the mental skills and then ask a prompt and ask a couple people to respond and usually it's been very casual, a lot of conversation. so we'll typically talk for about an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes, and then leave some room at the end for questions. For the nutrition workshop that Stephanie leads, ⁓ she typically that's more of a presentation style where she might start with asking a couple questions. for people to answer in the chat box, but that's usually more of like a presentation where it's not necessarily as interactive where she is giving you all the information that you need in an hour, hour and fifteen minutes and then leaving some time at the end for questions. speaker-1: Yeah, and and I think what's really interesting about ⁓ looking at the evolution of this academy is, you know, obviously the fantastic team, the roster that you have in place. ⁓ a n a couple of friends of the show are listed there. You're now one of them as well, which is super exciting. I Dr. Katie Peterson, ⁓ Melissa Pafunos is also on there and ⁓ a couple of fantastic people is of course. But you've also now ⁓ recently hosted your first in-person big major event ⁓ in association with the ⁓ pwh's New York sirens thinking back to when you started with this fantastic idea it was just an idea now you're working alongside the PWHL and and having PWHL players be a part of this event What did that mean to you? Did it feel surreal? Did it feel incredible? Is it still something you're trying to kind of digest? How are you feeling about that? speaker-0: Yeah, it still feels pretty surreal. ⁓ in a lot of ways it's very validating and reassuring that what I've been working on and what I've had in my brain for so long, seeing it all play out and the feedback that I've had from some of the parents and players was amazing. I mean it it really felt like everything came together really well. I'm still like processing it in some ways because it's something that I've been working on for so long. and I am absolutely looking forward to the next event that we can host like this. but it was it was really cool. It was a lot of fun too. Like I just had a great time talking to everyone, talking to the players, getting to see everybody. rooting the players on and ⁓ just having a good time and seeing the girls interact with PWHL players was awesome. It was it was such a great event. speaker-1: Okay, so then talk about what the event was. ⁓ maybe we should have started there before we dove in, but I just was so excited to dive in to find out how this made you feel because this is a culmination of a long, a long r road, a long journey. ⁓ but it's it's incredible to have seen it pay off like that. You know, what was what was the event and ⁓ and and talk about a little bit more of maybe the feedback that you received afterwards. speaker-0: Everyone who was there for our event got early access into the Prudential Center. And we split everyone up into three age groups. So we had girls from U eight all the way up to like U16 or U19. So we split into three age groups and they each got to sit in on different workshops. So Morgan was there. She's an our athletic trainer. ⁓ I played with her at Lebanon Valley and then she went on and worked with some women's hockey teams as an athletic trainer afterwards. ⁓ so she talked to the players about injury prevention. ⁓ and then Stephanie Rock, our nutritionist, ⁓ talked to everyone about nutrition, had a really great workshop for thirty minutes. And then Danielle McDonough is a former NWHL player and she played division one at Providence. She did the mental performance workshop. So each of those were about 30 minutes long, and we rotated the group so they could each sit in for 30 minutes with each of the coaches. We also had Taylor Borelli there, who is our recruiting advisor. And she had a ton of information for all the players who are interested in playing in college. ⁓ she had information on like what the recruiting process can look like and what timeline and you know, what are some things you should say when you reach out to coaches. ⁓ so within that hour and a half span that they were there before the game, they just got a ton of information. And even though it was an hour and a half of everything, it was all the coaches said afterwards, I could have talked to them for two hours minimum. Like they just got such a bite size snippet of what they each have, but it really felt like they got a little bit of everything there. ⁓ so after our workshops, we all sat together at the sirens game. We sat behind the net and that was awesome. It was cool s you know going from straight from the workshops going to the game because it was all fresh in their minds and I felt like that's something that you're kind of thinking about as you're watching the players on the ice then. and then after the game we did a QA with Kayla Vespa and Taylor Girard and they talked about their nutrition. They were phenomenal. I mean they're both phenomenal athletes, but Talking, seeing them talk to the girls was just the coolest thing. I mean, there were so many things that they said to them that I felt like made them relatable, but it just seemed like everything that they were saying, they were so dialed in and wanted to hear more. The girls asked a ton of questions. but they talked about their mental side of the game and You know, they said how they struggled when they were youth athletes, but it was something that they really have to work on now, playing professionally, and talked about how they journal, how they have their own mental performance coach that they work with. ⁓ they talked about a lot of things that we covered in the workshop. So like Danielle talked to the girls about forming a bounce back routine after mistakes. And Taylor said what'd she say? I say to myself, red light, green light. And when I make a mistake, I might be in the red, but I have to switch my mindset as quickly as a stoplight switches. And there were so many things that they said that just tied in everything that we talked about beforehand, you know. even some of the things with nutrition and Stephanie talked about after games you have to get in protein and carbohydrates and one of the awesome things to have after games was chocolate milk and Taylor comes walking in with the chocolate milk and it's like so that was really cool. It just brought it all together really well. and the parents and the players all asked phenomenal questions. And they hung out afterwards and signed a bunch of autographs and took pictures and it just it just really tied everything together really well to end the night. ⁓ and I got a ton of really like there were a bunch of parents who came up to me and were like, Did you do this? Can you keep doing this? Because this is pretty awesome. You know, and even like I I think Kayla said You know, there was nothing like this when I was growing up playing, which I can relate to. Like, nobody talked to me about nutrition or the mental side of the game. And like there wasn't a there wasn't a PWHL when I grew up playing. Like we saw women playing hockey on TV once every four years, and that's it. So ⁓ it's been cool just being a part of how the game is growing for youth athletes and just wanting to continue to give them all the resources and continue to grow the game. speaker-1: Well, ⁓ speaking of continuing to grow, ⁓ obviously it's clear, ⁓ especially based on that feedback, just the impact that ⁓ the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy is already having. But when you think about the future, when you think about ⁓ the space that the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy can continue carving out, what do you think? That looks like I'm not gonna ask for like a five or a ten year plan, ⁓ necessarily unless that's how you wanna go with this, but just where do you see this growing or how do you see this growing and continuing to make the impact that it's it's having and obviously making an an even larger impact as you move forward? speaker-0: The fact that we're small and we can be flexible, and that a lot of the feedback that we've gotten, we've been able to move in different directions with things. So I think that's a big part of it, is just as we see a need. So whether that's team workshops, if there's teams looking for a full season where we're meeting with them more consistently, we can do that. Or, you know, if it's hockey clinics. ⁓ I would really like to do something like that where our team is meeting with the players and then can get on the ice with them and kind of reinforce everything that we're talking about while we're on the ice together. but I think that Sirens event was very impactful and I am already planning some more events to do like that because I think a big part of growing the game is not just providing good role models for girls hockey players, but also I think girls hockey players should watch women's hockey. ⁓ I think the PWHL is something that every girls hockey player should be involved with and college hockey too, you know, making sure that you're supporting your local teams and going out and watching them. ⁓ because that was How you know, one of the main reasons I was inspired as an athlete was I had role models like Hillary Knight and Shelley Looney when I was growing up. ⁓ and I want to make sure that they're being exposed to those players and can talk with them, ⁓ as well as our team, because everyone in our group is a fantastic role model for any girls' hockey player. speaker-1: Have one more question for you. And I want you to take a moment to step back and think about the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy, the journey that you've been on with this from start to this very moment, and share maybe one of, if not the most impactful moments. that you've had as a part of this experience, as a part of seeing this grow and seeing the impact that it's having. speaker-0: I think the most impactful was definitely our sirens event. I'm not sure ⁓ as a whole, but just at the end of the night it was like, wow, ⁓ somebody came up to me and said, Chloe, you know these girls are never gonna forget today, right? Like the and it maybe they're not gonna remember everything that they learned in the workshop, but they're never going to forget today where they got to come in and talk with all women's hockey players, meet other girls' hockey players, and then go talk to people in the PWHL who they can relate to and look up to. ⁓ and I think especially as that event ended and in the way that it ended with Taylor and Kayla, That has been that has been definitely the most impactful speaker-1: I know that I said that was gonna be my last question, but of course my actual last question has to be how do people reach out to you, connect with you, find out when events are coming, ⁓ when the next sirens event or the equivalent of is going to happen. Where can they go to find out all of this incredible information? speaker-0: ⁓ we have a website, GW HockeyAcademy dot com. ⁓ there is a contact form at the bottom of the page. So if anyone wants to reach out, that goes directly to me. ⁓ I'm pretty responsive. So feel free to reach out. We also post all of our events on the Instagram and Facebook pages, so it's just The Facebook is Girls and Women's Hockey Academy and Instagram is GWPeriod Hockey Academy. I'm sure it'll be tagged in this post. but we've been pretty up to date on posting everything on there. So following that would be a either of those pages would be a great spot for updates. speaker-1: And of course, I will have all of that information in the show notes. So make sure to check that out. And I wanted to say, Chloe, we have so much more that we could cover, but I did want to say thank you so much for taking the time ⁓ to spend with me and t and share your story, but as well as the incredible work that you're doing, you and your team are doing with the Girls and Women's Hockey Academy. Of course, I've been following along. I'm so happy and so thrilled to see the growth, and I cannot wait to continue cheering you on, your team on as we continue to see it grow. So thank you so much for being here today. speaker-0: Yes, thank you so much for having me. This has been fun. speaker-1: And if you enjoyed this episode as much as we both did, be sure to like, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your fellow hockey fans. Your support helps me to continue bringing you stories just like this one from around the world of women's hockey. I'm Chris Sinclair. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll catch you next time on Ringside Rundown.