Frozen Out

Forgotten start dates. Varsity status denials. Archived records show how the U-M women’s ice hockey team has repeatedly been iced out.

By Madeleine Bradford

Water poured across Palmer Field, swirling through the grass. Soon, this flooded field would be transformed into a gleaming sheet of ice.

“Part of Palmer Field is to be turned into a skating rink free to everybody as long as skating lasts, and college women will have an opportunity to learn the hitherto unknown mysteries of ice hockey,” the Michigan Daily announced in 1916.

This was one of the first mentions of women’s ice hockey in U-M’s history. It wouldn’t be the last.

The first U-M women’s ice hockey team started as early as 1933, continuing through 1934, first under the direction of men’s varsity hockey coach Eddie Lowrey, then under varsity co-captains John Sherf and John Jewell. The student-run Women’s Athletic Association (WAA) at U-M took over leadership of women’s ice hockey until 1936, according to archived WAA report books.

Women playing sports at U-M had to earn a certain number of points to be granted a women’s-only Block M from WAA, and the points system was expanded in the mid-1930s to include ice hockey. (Women’s letter jackets couldn’t have the same Block M as the men’s jackets until 1991.)

Then, the WAA appears to have dropped ice hockey in 1937, without explanation.

The early women’s ice hockey players were largely forgotten by the campus. In 1943, the Michigan Daily confidently announced that “the University’s first women’s ice hockey team,” the “Bond Bombers,” would be raising money for war bonds. It was as if the 1933–36 teams had never existed.

The “Bond Bombers” were, in fact, a publicity stunt by members of U-M’s junior class, using brooms instead of hockey sticks, promising to “sweep” the game. They were treated as a novelty and held only one game.

When Title IX was passed, in 1972, women’s ice hockey wasn’t among the sports that were granted varsity status by U-M, as there wasn’t a U-M women’s ice hockey team at the time.

Fast forward to 1996, when the Daily announced, once again: “For the first time in recent memory, the University has a women’s hockey team.” (In fact, this team was not new; it had been started in 1995.)

“Everyone is always like, ‘Oh wow, women’s ice hockey, I never knew there was such a thing.’ But there is—I’m a woman and I play hockey,” sophomore defensive player Catie Grasso told the 1996 Daily.

Unlike prior teams, this one had real, concrete staying power, continuing to the present day.

Once again, in the late 1990s, the possibility of varsity status was raised, then nixed for reasons of competitions, conference arrangements, facilities, and costs to both students and U-M.

Without varsity status, women’s ice hockey is a club team and players have to pay for their own equipment, travel, and, crucially, ice time—an expensive commodity. Comparatively, the men’s ice hockey team was granted varsity status in 1922, more than 100 years ago. This past year, U-M President Santa Ono paid for the women’s ice hockey team’s ice time out of his own pocket.

In 2024, the University of Michigan began a feasibility study for a varsity women’s ice hockey team, creating potential for varsity status once more.