At the Kendall Ice Arena, the home rink of the University of Miami Women’s Hockey team, the air is as charged as it is cold.
The players treat it like a temple, each other as family — it’s one of the most tight-knit, quietly revolutionary teams on campus.
Having recently been promoted to a Division II team under the American Collegiate Hockey Association, the upcoming season brings these Hurricanes skaters tougher opponents, official standings and more visibility than ever before.
But for the Hurricanes, that was never the whole purpose. This team isn’t just playing for points — they’re playing for people. What carried them to D2 classification isn’t budget or prestige, but rather the unbreakable sisterhood that comes alive every time the puck drops.
That bond is sacred to sophomore forward Alex Meola and junior goalie Ana Baurle.
“We’re the same person, just a different font,” Baurle says. “I’d do anything for her.”
UM Women’s Hockey brought these two together, and as they laugh together in the locker room, you might mistake them for having grown up playing together.
They met a week ago.
That kind of closeness isn’t a rarity on this team — it’s the culture. In a city better known for surfboards than slapshots, the UM women’s hockey team has built a community where anyone who shows up with heart and hustle belongs.
Some players grew up skating before they could walk, like freshman Izzy Schaeffer, whose father built a rink for her in their backyard. Others, like sophomore Samantha Bonomi and freshman Bella Rodriguez, picked up a stick for the first time in college.
All that matters is that you show up, ready to work. And from there, the team works its magic.
“Hockey is a community,” freshman Amelia Kong says. “This program was a big reason I came [to UM].” Kong brings four years of experience to the rink.
Players come from all corners of the country, drawn not just by the sport, but by the promise of something deeper: inclusion, trust and a shared refusal to let geography or gender norms define what hockey should look like.
“If you see her, you can be her,” graduate defenseman Allie Litzinger said. “We live by that.”
For a sport often still closed off to women, the players on this team aim to be a driving force in helping to increase the number of girls who lace up their skates come winter. Although it’s one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S., hockey isn’t always an easy space for women. It’s expensive, isolating, often underfunded and overlooked.
Captain Kaila Griffin, who’s been playing hockey for eight years and has been on Miami’s team since its inaugural season in 2022, watched this unfold in real time.
“The men’s teams are preferred over us for ice times because there are more teams, they’ve been around longer, and they have more stakes in the rink,” Griffin said. “We’re at the bottom of the totem pole.”
But that doesn’t discourage the Hurricanes.
In a city where ice shouldn’t exist, the UM Women’s hockey team has built a home for everyone who needed one.
When their skates touch the rink now, it’s not just about playing the game they love — it’s about creating a sense of belonging and carving out space for themselves, pulling up a chair to a table they refuse to be excluded from anymore. The team’s Division II classification is a well-deserved recognition of how they leave everything on the ice. And thanks to these pioneers, there will be many more chairs to come in the future.
“It’s so cool seeing girls get the opportunity to play hockey past high school,” Griffin said. “Hockey is family.”
And this team is a formidable one, at that.
Because greatness doesn’t always come from privilege — sometimes, it’s born from persistence.
That’s what it takes to build something that lasts. Thankfully, this team is as strong as they come.
And in Miami, a city synonymous with heat, the UM Women’s Hockey team proves the fiercest flames can be found on the ice.
