When Abbey Levy and Olivia Zafuto step on the ice in Toronto on New Year’s Day to play the first game of the inaugural Professional Women’s Hockey League, they will be focused on more than just the task at hand. They will also be thinking about the past as well as the future of the sport.

For Levy, who played three seasons at Boston College and until recently was serving as a volunteer goalie coach there, she can’t help but think about how far women’s hockey has come thanks to the efforts of people such as Eagles’ head coach Katie King Crowley and associate head coach Courtney Kennedy. 

King played in three Olympics, including the inaugural tournament in 1998, while Kennedy suited up in two Olympics, and was an assistant coach with the 2022 silver-medal squad.

“For me it’s about playing for those people and showing them, ‘you guys did this, you guys got us this far.’ It’s something to be grateful about, and I’m just glad of the progress we’ve made,” Levy said of all the pioneers in the women’s game. 

More than just looking back, every woman involved in this new campaign is looking to the future and hoping to inspire all the young girls sitting in the stands who can now dream of competing in a full-time professional league without the burden of wondering how they’re going to make ends meet in between games.

“Things have come a long way from where they started. I always told the girls that stuck with it that I was super thankful and grateful for what they did,” said Zafuto, who has suited up in numerous women’s professional leagues since graduating from Colgate University in 2019.

“Of course, there were still things missing. We still had girls that were working full-time jobs, so we would work practice schedules around them. It’s nice this year that everyone’s coming to the rink and they’re ready to go. They can focus on practice.”

There’s no disputing that women’s hockey has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. From the meteoric rise in the number of girls playing hockey around the country to the record viewership that tunes in to watch women compete at the Olympics, the next logical step has always been the creation of a sustainable professional league.

While several efforts have been launched over the years, the progression of women’s professional leagues has often had a one step forward, two steps back quality. The most recent effort was the Premier Hockey Federation, which took over the National Women’s Hockey League in 2021. The league made great strides but its growth was hampered by a number of top players who were holding out for something more.

That thing arrived this summer with the announcement of the PWHL, which has the support of a group of savvy sports figures with deep pockets and a commitment to give women’s professional hockey a real shot at success.

“Every day, it’s exciting. Every day you show up and there’s something going on,” Zafuto said. “You come to the rink and the coaches have been there preparing practice plans and video and new systems that they’ve put so much time into and they care so much about it. It’s been awesome.”

The league will start with six teams – three on each side of the border, including one in the New York area. The squad will train and play the bulk of its games this year in Connecticut, with at least five games slated to be played at the UBS Arena, the home of the N.Y. Islanders in Belmont.

As the only two New Yorkers on the squad, Levy of Congers and Zafuto of Niagara Falls are excited to represent the Empire State this season. Both look back on draft day and can recount the agonizing hours it took to hear their names called. Levy was selected in the 11th round and Zafuto one round later.

“It was a really special day for women’s hockey, but really stressful for a lot of us as well,” said Zafuto, who was on the ice running a youth skills clinic in Boston at the time her name was called. 

“I really wanted New York and it came down to who was going to pick me first,” added Levy. “I was very grateful that all the cards worked out in my favor. I know my family was pretty grateful, too.”

Growing up as a rabid Islanders fan, playing games at the UBS Arena will feel like a full-circle moment for the entire Levy family.

“It’s the coolest thing for my parents who met at an Islanders game. I think it’s more special for them. And even for my siblings getting to watch me now play there at UBS, it all ties back to my childhood. This is just a dream come true,” said Levy, who must balance her time between getting ready for the PWHL season with playing for the U.S. Women’s National Team in the Rivalry Series against Canada. 

With each day that passes the excitement builds in anticipation of that first puck drop on a new era in women’s hockey. For every player suiting up in the PWHL this season, it’s their time to move the sport forward even more.

“Regardless of the score or how the game goes, just having the fans support us and growing the game for the next generation and showing kids that you can be at this level now, and the people before us have worked for all this, it’s just going to be so inspiring,” Levy said.

“Just to be that player that gets to step on the ice and play professionally for probably the first time in this real league that they’ve made, it’s just an honor. It’s going to be electric and it’s going to make history.”