Winny Brodt-Brown - Inaugural Ms. Hockey, founder of Os Hockey Training

How I Got Here with Corey Koskie

According to University of Minnesota yearbooks, approximately 30 women tried out for the first-ever Gopher Women’s hockey team in 1918. Fast forward 60 years, there is very little organized girls hockey. Girls just didn’t play hockey. They figure skated and if they wanted to play something like hockey they chased a ring around the ice and played ringette in Canada. Ringette never took off in the US and in 1994 the Minnesota High School League voted to endorse ice hockey over ringette as an official high school sport for girls. In Canada if girls want to play a winter ice sport they played ringette with other girls. In the USA girls who wanted to play a team ice sport had to play with the boys. Winny Brodt wanted to play a team ice sport so she played hockey with the boys. Being the first meant it is going to be a tough road, especially in hockey. Remember, back in the 80's there was checking in pee wee hockey. If you're a girl playing with the boys, you have to be prepared for contact. Winny had to survive in a very physical game. She not only survived, she thrived.

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