A Utah teen recently found herself at the center of a historic moment for U.S. girls and women’s hockey.
For the first time in history, USA Hockey saw 100,000 girls register to play hockey in a season, and the honor of being No. 100,000 belongs to 13-year-old Joanna Gilligan of Millcreek, Utah.
On March 6, USA Hockey’s vice president of girls hockey, Kristen Sagaert, celebrated Gilligan — who will play in the Utah Mammoth’s new all-girls league — at the Utah Mammoth Ice Center with a special locker room tour and a visit from a hockey legend.
“Honestly, it was crazy. I had no idea that I would ever get the chance to do something like this, to be the 100,000th girl to register for USA Hockey,” she told the Deseret News.
Gilligan was inspired by her father, Brandon Gilligan, who has been playing hockey since he was 12, to try the sport. She recently finished her first season as one of three girls on a boys team at Salt Lake City Sports Complex.
“When she said, ‘I want to play hockey,’ I was all for it. I have three kids, and she’s the only one that showed any interest so far,” Brandon Gilligan said.
Now, hockey is something he can share with his daughter. Between the father-daughter duo’s games and practices, they’re “at the rink more days than we’re not at the rink it seems like lately,” Brandon Gilligan said.
When Joanna Gilligan, her three friends and family showed up to the Utah Mammoth Ice Center for their locker room tour, they were surprised by Hilary Knight, who just captained the U.S. women’s hockey team to gold at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
Knight brought her medal and signed a USA Hockey jersey for Gilligan.
“It was amazing. She was so kind,” Gilligan said. “She’s such an inspiration for all girls hockey (players), being a gold medalist in the Olympics, but it was crazy being able to actually meet her in person.”
Knight plays professionally for the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Seattle Torrent but trains in Salt Lake City in the summer. Knight has been involved in previous Mammoth clinics in Utah.
Sagaert said meetings like the one between Knight and Joanna Gilligan make hockey “a more realistic and attainable goal for little girls around the country.”
“Our Olympians are our best advocates of the game,” Sagaert said. “They live it. Those gold medals are earned by a lot of time and effort, but they also are the best spokespeople. And I love seeing our younger athletes be inspired when they get to meet them in person.”
Growing girls hockey in Utah and across the U.S.
If Sagaert could describe the state of girls and women’s hockey in the U.S. in only one word, it would be “empowering,” she said.
“Because the future of our game is already playing and I’m really excited to see what the future does next.”
Joanna Gilligan is part of that future and an example of the growth of girls and women’s hockey in Utah and across the U.S.
Utah has the highest year-over-year growth in the United States for girls and women playing hockey with 30%, which accounts for 6.2% of USA Hockey’s total female growth, Sagaert told the Deseret News.
“It’s a testament to the infrastructure within Utah, the addition of the Utah Mammoth in town, the work that the volunteers from USA Hockey in that area are putting in, but also I know that the Utah Mammoth has done a lot to encourage growth and access in the community,” she said.
Kristen Bowness, the Mammoth’s youth program director, wants the program to emulate Junior Jazz and its 90,000 kids.
“Right now our mission is basically to introduce as many people as possible to the game while still supporting people who are already playing,” she said.
Bowness is attempting to do that through the Mammoth’s street hockey initiative with Hockey 101s, clinics, leagues and even PE class takeovers at schools, where they take over classes for the day and leave behind a full set of equipment and a two-week curriculum for PE teachers to use.
The hope is that the kids will “catch the bug” at school and then join street hockey leagues.
The Mammoth are also trying to grow ice hockey through the eight-week “Learn to Play” program, which provides gear for only $250, and its “Continue to Play” program.
The Mammoth Ice Center also offers a rookie league from 6U to 19U, which will include a girls division and an adult league, as well as hockey clinics.
“Everyone should have that opportunity,” Bowness said. “And no matter your gender, your skill level, your age, your ability level — we’ll have some sled hockey programming as well — everyone should just have that opportunity to play.”
The largest area of female growth in both Utah and the U.S. is adult women over the age of 20 with a 29% increase across the U.S., and 100 new adult females playing in Utah since March 2025, a 30% increase, according to Sagaert.
But the age groups with the highest percentage increase over the last year in Utah are the 10U (72%) and the 8U (44%).
Growing up, Bowness wasn’t allowed to play hockey, she said, so providing equal hockey opportunities for girls is personal.
“I want girls to have the exact same opportunities as the boys, and it shouldn’t be a big deal,” Bowness said. “It should just be normal that girls are playing hockey the same way that boys are playing hockey.”
Joanna Gilligan is part of that future Sagaert mentioned, and the 13-year-old thinks more girls should give hockey a chance because “we need more representation in girls hockey,” she said.
“It was a great experience for me, and I think that everybody in the community is so kind and everybody’s all supportive of each other, especially this being my first year, and I joined a team where everybody was still learning and I think it was great and everybody helped each other kind of learn how to play.”