ANN ARBOR – Shiann Darkangelo was enamored with the University of Michigan hockey game experience from the first time she walked in the doors at Yost Ice Arena as a kid.
The Wolverines were in the heart of a dominating 22-year NCAA Tournament streak in the early-to-mid-2000s, when one of Darkangelo’s travel hockey teammates’ brother was a star forward on the team (T.J. Hensick).
She yearned to play college hockey after absorbing the electric atmosphere, winning free t-shirts and watching high-level hockey. But the Brighton native never envisioned donning the maize and blue because there was no Division I program at the school. There was only one Division I women’s team in the state at the time, but Wayne State folded its program after the 2010-11 season because of funding issues.
“It would have been so appealing,” Darkangelo, who played collegiately at Syracuse and Quinnipiac and now plays for Ottawa in the Professional Women’s Hockey League “(UM) didn’t have women’s hockey, so you never really thought about playing at that time there because there wasn’t an opportunity to do so. But yeah, it would have been awesome.”
Nothing has changed since then. The state is still without a Division I women’s hockey program, despite producing the fourth-most NCAA Division I women’s hockey players in the United States behind Minnesota, Massachusetts and New York.
Those three states have a combined 20 varsity women’s programs, while women’s college hockey in Michigan consists of one Division III program at Adrian College and a handful of club teams, including at UM, where players have to pay about $3,000 per year to cover costs for ice time, travel and other related expenses.
UM club head coach Jenna Trubiano is spearheading a push to bring the first Division I program in the state to Ann Arbor. Trubiano, a 2013 Anchor Bay High graduate who also played club for the Wolverines, just completed her third season at the helm, leading the team to a 37-10-2-3 record over the past two seasons and back-to-back American Collegiate Hockey Association Tournament appearances.
Trubiano has been active on social media promoting her program and advocating for the university to take steps toward adding a varsity women’s team.
Her persistent efforts have gained traction.
At last week’s UM Board of Regents meeting, Regent Denise Ilitch publicly called for the university to add a Division I women’s hockey program.
“We’re in a historical moment,” said Ilitch, whose family owns the Detroit Red Wings. “It’s time for the University of Michigan to have a varsity team for its women’s hockey program.”
“Part of our mission statement at the University of Michigan says to serve the people of Michigan, and right now the people of Michigan are not being served. There is a demand for varsity women’s hockey at the University of Michigan by the people of Michigan.”
Regent Jordan Acker echoed Ilitch’s support for adding a women’s program, urging President Santa Ono and Athletic Director Warde Manuel to authorize a third-party organization to conduct a feasibility study that will help officials assess the practicality and costs of the proposed move.
“We will be following up on that,” Ono said at the meeting. “And as you know, I’ve asked for a feasibility study. I know our athletic director is not here, but he will be reporting back to us shortly.”
Trubiano said she understands there are still many barriers that must be cleared for her varsity vision to come to fruition, but she’s encouraged by the regents’ support.
“It’s energizing to be recognized for our efforts on and off the ice given that our program has been around for so long,” Trubiano told MLive after the March 28 meeting. “It’s no secret that the state of Michigan is behind the eight-ball when it comes to women’s hockey at the collegiate level. It’s really exciting to hear the regents and President (Santa) Ono speak so highly of women’s hockey and trying to take the next step in the right direction.
“I spend basically every moment thinking about this program and ways to improve it, and it just finally feels like our players are being seen, they’re being heard.”
The regents’ public support hasn’t gone unnoticed by the university’s athletic department. A source tells MLive that the department plans to move forward with the feasibility study following last week’s meeting, although there is no definite timeline.
In February, the notion that the athletic department would explore the possibility of adding women’s hockey seemed doubtful.
“We’ve looked at it over the years, and right now, given all of the things that are going on in college athletics, it is not something that we are prepared to do at this time,” Manuel said Feb. 14 on a video conference call with reporters. “But we continue to look at women’s ice hockey. It was a sport that I had at UConn. It’s a great sport, very competitive. It’s great recruiting grounds here at Michigan, and it’s something that we will continue to look at as we move forward and we see what happens in intercollegiate athletics as time goes on.”
Still a long way to go
A feasibility study would be the first step in adding a Division I program at the university, but it doesn’t guarantee any further action.
College Hockey Inc., a nonprofit that is funded by the NHL, would conduct the feasibility study, examining costs associated with facilities, scholarships, travel, recruiting, conference affiliations, coaches’ salaries and more.
Mike Snee, executive director for College Hockey Inc., said the organization has been a part of about 14 feasibility studies for universities around the country interested in adding a men’s or women’s hockey program.
Some have led to varsity approval, most recently at the University of Delaware. In December, the university announced the addition of a Division I women’s program in a move to stay Title IX complaint after the football team transitioned to FBS.
But not all feasibilities studies have had the same outcome.
In 2019, a study was done at Northern Michigan University as it explored the potential of becoming the first Division I program in the state since Wayne State dropped its varsity team.
But the study never materialized into an official proposal as NMU, Snee said, determined it would need to build another facility to support an additional hockey program – a costly venture for a Division II school in all sports besides men’s hockey.
UM is in a similar position, although it might be better suited to financially support an additional program than the other six universities in the state that already have men’s varsity hockey.
The Wolverines also have one of the richest histories in the sport. They are tied with the University of Denver for the most national championships with nine and are headed to their 28th Frozen Four this season – an NCAA record.
Most NCAA athletic departments are heavily subsidized, with schools transferring up to tens of millions from the general fund annually to pay for athletics. But UM is one of the few self-sufficient athletic departments in the country. During the 2023 fiscal year, athletics generated $229,561,279 in operating revenue compared to $225,548,280 in expenses, according to a UM financial report obtained by MLive through an open records request.
Nevertheless, adding women’s hockey wouldn’t be cheap, and university officials must weigh a multitude of factors before a final proposal would be submitted to the regents for a vote.
The biggest hurdle for UM would be finding or building a facility for a women’s team to play. Yost is one of the oldest and most iconic college rinks in the nation, but it also is outdated and would not be able to support another varsity team.
That means a new facility would have to be built or renovated, which would come at a considerable cost.
Penn State men’s and women’s hockey transitioned to Division I in 2012 largely due to an $88 million donation from the Pegula family to build a rink on campus to support both programs.
In 2014, a $32 million donation allowed Arizona State to elevate its club men’s program to Division I.
Augustana University just completed its first season as a varsity men’s program, and it wouldn’t have happened without a large donation to build a new rink.
The feasibility study at UM will give officials a better idea of potential locations and costs of a new rink on campus. But a new facility wouldn’t be the only significant expense of adding a women’s program.
The most likely conference for a UM women’s program would be the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, home of three of the four Big Ten schools that have a women’s varsity team.
In the NMU feasibility study, it cited that the operating budget for women’s programs in the WCHA ranged from a high of $739,362 to a low of $330,905, and the scholarship budget ranged from a high of $1,210,000 to a low of $300,229 for the NCAA maximum of 18 scholarships.
For comparison, women’s hockey was the second-most expensive women’s varsity sport at Ohio State for the latest fiscal year, with expenses totaling $3,352,519, according to data OSU submitted to the NCAA. It was sixth among women’s teams in total revenue, generating $224,247.
But the Buckeyes have won two of the past three national championships, bringing value to the university that expands beyond dollars.
Darkangelo believes greenlighting a varsity program at UM would be a worthwhile investment.
“I feel like if the University of Michigan or Michigan State did have a team, I don’t want to say it’s an easy recruiting process, but I think it would attract a lot of girls,” Darkangelo said. “People would love to go to those schools. The school itself, people wanna go to without the hockey, right?”
Not the first push for varsity at UM
Sue McDowell grew up on the east coast and played Division III hockey at Colby College. She came to UM in the mid-1980s to pursue a graduate degree and then returned as a full-time staff member in 1992, holding various administration and computing positions until she left the university in 2019.
But during her tenure, she helped found the women’s hockey club team, which began play for the 1995-96 season. She and a few other women’s hockey enthusiasts made the push to go varsity shortly after, looking to capitalize on a growing sport that was set to participate in the Olympics for the first time in 1998.
The university’s athletic department was structured differently at the time. It was the Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics planning committee that recommended the university add two varsity sports – men’s soccer and women’s ice hockey. Athletic Director Tom Goss asked for a five-year business plan for both sports, which were completed in September 1998 and submitted to the Finance Committee. But by that time, McDowell said, proposals also were submitted to add women’s water polo and women’s lacrosse.
In March 1999, the BICA approved varsity status for women’s water polo and men’s soccer, with hockey being passed over largely because of higher costs to sustain the program and the lack of girls youth hockey participation, according to McDowell.
“It was a great lesson in terms of how institutions make decisions,” McDowell said. “You can imagine very disappointing because there was a lot of people with passion, but passion doesn’t always sell programs at Michigan.”
Since then McDowell, has served in multiple roles in girls and women’s hockey, striving to grow the game. Girls youth hockey participation numbers have increased over the past three decades, but incrementally instead of exponentially.
According to USA Hockey, there were 3,079 girls 19 and under playing youth hockey for the 2005-06 season. In 2022-23, there were 3,900.
During the March 28 regents meeting, Ilitch highlighted Michigan natives who recently played travel hockey for the Little Caesars Tier 1 organization before going out of state to play Division I college.
Wisconsin’s Kirsten Simms, a Plymouth native, led the NCAA scoring this season with 75 points in 39 games, helping the Badgers reach the national title game before falling to OSU.
Cassie Hall, who is from South Lyon, was a freshman for the Badgers and was named to the WCHA all-rookie team, finishing fourth in the conference with 19 goals.
Overall, there were 45 Michigan natives playing Division I this season, according to College Hockey Inc., and many more before that, like Darkangelo, Madison Packer, Taylor Girard and Megan Keller, who are all still playing professionally in the PWHL.
However, there is still a large gap between Michigan and the top two states producing Division I talent. Minnesota leads the way with 221 players on 2023-24 rosters, with Massachusetts sitting at No. 2 with 103.
Is the girls youth hockey model in Michigan stable enough to justify adding a Division I program in the state? McDowell said she thought there would be more growth at the grassroots level since her initial campaign to bring varsity women’s hockey to UM in the 1990s.
Because most rinks in Michigan are privately owned, the cost for ice can be expensive. Travel hockey organizations are the primary producer of college players in the state, and it isn’t uncommon to see parents drive an hour or more just to drive their kid(s) for a midweek practice – both in boys and girls hockey.
Both Minnesota and Massachusetts have adopted more of a community model, where top talent is more inclined to stay local and grow up playing on the same team.
Lyle Phair is the former girls hockey director of HoneyBaked Hockey Club, one of the premier youth organizations in the state. He also is the executive director of Suburban Sports Group, which manages six ice rink facilities in Metro Detroit.
He believes part of the reason for the minimal growth in girls youth hockey in the state is the absence of opportunity to play Division I hockey close to home.
Four in-state men’s teams qualified for the 16-team NCAA Tournament this year: UM, MSU, Western Michigan and Michigan Tech. The Wolverines, Spartans and Broncos all have at least eight Michigan natives on their roster.
“It’s kind of this chicken and the egg thing,” said Phair, who played at MSU in the 1980s. “We don’t have enough chickens and we don’t have enough eggs. There’s the transient nature of it. Girls hockey in Michigan is built on the travel hockey model, which is kind of a transient model. People are always looking for the next best thing. ‘Where am I gonna go play?’
“If you lose two or three kids off a team, it’s not like on the boys side where, if you lose two or three kids off the team, you can replace those kids with other boys. On the girls side, that’s not the case. As soon as you lose two or three kids, then that team might fold and some of those girls might quit playing hockey.”
But with the recent success of the UM club team and the rapid rise of the PWHL, which began its inaugural season in January, Trubiano, who has a full-time job on top of coaching the club team, believes there is enough momentum to bring a Division I program to Ann Arbor.
It’s a query she hears constantly.
“Usually, the first question I get is, ‘When is Michigan going D1?’” she said. “Just like standing in a rink with a Michigan hockey jacket where there’s girls and women’s hockey, people just come up to me. It’s actually insane the amount of people that I’ve met wearing Michigan stuff.”
For Darkangelo, she never had the opportunity to play collegiately in Michigan, but she was on the ice at Little Caesars Arena on March 16 when PWHL Boston and Ottawa set a United State PWHL attendance record with 13,736 fans. It was a moment Darkangelo, who was traded from Boston to Ottawa the next day, will never forget. She hopes similar opportunities are on the horizon in Michigan for youth girls hoping to play in college.
“That is definitely going to go down as one of the coolest moments in my hockey career,” Darkangelo said of the game at LCA.
But if any Division I women’s hockey is going to be played at UM, the school first needs a rink available for the team to play. McDowell said she is still cynical of that happening without first a large donation.
“It is a very complicated topic,” McDowell said. “It is hard because I don’t want to trivialize it. I would love to have a varsity team at the University of Michigan. I deeply respect what (Trubiano) is doing. I deeply respect the sense of urgency and rightness of it. But I spent 28 years on campus in some pretty high level management positions, and they aren’t going to do it cheaply, and they are going to need money to do it.
“Michigan has been great at changing direction quickly because money showed up. We wouldn’t have a lot of the great facilities we have if we didn’t have some very generous donors. If someone came out of the woodwork and said ‘I’d really seriously like to talk to you about this, I have millions I want to put into women’s ice hockey.’ I’m sure they would have a conversation, but I don’t see (UM) doing it out a sense of need or a sense of ‘it seems like the right thing to do.’”
