This week’s guest on Legends Of Sport is one of the most celebrated women’s hockey players, on and off the ice, for her contributions to the game – former Team USA captain and Olympic gold medalist, Meghan Duggan! A 3x NCAA Champion, 3x Olympian and 7x World Champion, Meghan was a member of the U.S. women’s national hockey team for 14 years. Andy & Meghan discuss her path to the ice while growing up in Danvers, MA, her experience playing for the Wisconsin Badgers, moving up to Team USA only to witness the many inequities facing the women’s game, her current role with the New Jersey Devils as the Director of Player Development, her advocacy efforts for gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion, the NHL’s Player Inclusion Coalition, the strides made in the last few years in women’s hockey, the greatest moment in her career and so much more!
Other topics discussed in this episode:
2:55 Meghan’s childhood in Danvers, MA, learning to skate when she was three years old and playing hockey with the boys
6:55 Playing for University of Wisconsin, collegiate powerhouse program, under legendary coach Mark Johnson
11:10 Meghan and her Team USA teammates led a boycott in 2017 to call out the inequities in their sport and push USA Hockey for changes.
“We were part of a group that really worked to lead our program forward and in terms of…the treatment, the support…insurance, travel, athlete care…the ice times, all these different things. (The) leadership on our team (pushed) to make some of those changes and to kind of bang on USA Hockey…We got into a pretty public debate with them (in) 2017 ahead of boycotting the World Championships. But it was something that needed to happen. We had started having conversations on bus trips and around dinner tables about inequities that we were seeing…we’d been around long enough and we knew…we had to do something in order to change it…It was something that’s probably one of the most proud moments in my career, of us being able to make those changes, and then go on to win a couple gold medals after that, and really cement kind of our worth at that point, too.”
16:35 Meghan’s role as Director of Player Development with the NJ Devils
20:26 Other women who are breaking the glass ceiling and serving in front office roles with NHL teams
23:00 NHL’s Playing Inclusion Coalition and growing the game of hockey
“I’m a member of the NHL Player Inclusion Coalition…We talk all the time just about inclusion in hockey, whether it’s women or players of color, you know, LGBTQ+ community members. And so I just think hockey as a sport still has a long way to go and we see it every day with things that are happening. But, I’d be really remiss not to mention how far we’ve come. And I’m just as excited as you are…to just see, when is that first female GM gonna break through, like, when is there going to be a woman on an NHL bench? That’ll be a really, really great day. And I’m excited for it.”
26:00 The greatest moment in Meghan’s hockey career
28:45 The future for women’s hockey
