Kelly Pannek is on pace to graduate from the University of Minnesota in the spring with a finance degree. With two internships in wealth management also on her resume, she is a prime candidate to get hired in the business world, but the Olympic champion plans to put her off-the-ice career on hold, thanks to a landmark deal involving USA Hockey last year.
“I plan on just playing hockey as long as I can, because I can,” she said.
That used to be a challenging choice for the nation’s top female ice hockey players.
After threatening not to show up at last year’s world championship at the USA Hockey Arena, the top US female players in the sport agreed to a package of improvements, including one that helped their bottom line. Post-graduate hockey players can make about US$70,000 a year and about US$130,000 annually in Olympic years.
“The progress we made through that deal has changed a lot of our lives, and changed the future of our sport,” said Meghan Duggan, who captained the US when they won gold over Canada at the Olympics earlier this year. “Before that, all of us relied on other income from a second job, spousal and family support because we weren’t earning a living that supported us in an appropriate way. The deal also created awareness and cultural change.”
During USA Hockey’s training camp last week, where 44 of the top women in the sport gathered, the governing body had some of its top executives in attendance.
Three-time Olympian Hilary Knight said that was new and suggested a dramatic difference in support.
USA Hockey executive director Pat Kelleher was in suburban Detroit not just to be seen, saying that he listened to what the women had to say and shared information about USA Hockey’s mission.
Before last year’s agreement, many players had to juggle jobs and decide whether to stick with the sport or to give it up to pay the bills.
Knight used to squeeze in private lessons on the ice between her own training and competition to make ends meet after graduating from Wisconsin.
Pannek acknowledged that she did not worry too much about the fight for better benefits previously, because she was still in college on a scholarship, but just months away from graduating, she is grateful for the path paved by those before her.
“I saw how hard our veterans worked to set this up for all of us coming out of college,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine how it used to be. Coming out of college this next year is really special because there are options. I can get an education and I know I can use it, but maybe not right now and put that into the future and play hockey for the next few years.”
“I want to keep playing as long as I can and then use my degree,” Pannek added.
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