Goalie Girl

Fans watch as the puck leaves the stick of the number one ranked Rockhurst player at the Carriage Club ice rink. As their heads turn to catch the goalie’s reaction, they cheer as they watch her catch the puck in mid-air — saving the CC Penguins from losing the game. 

The braid peeking out from her helmet is the last thing they notice.

Freshman Izzy Wong is the Penguins’ first-ever female goalie, and the third girl to ever play on the historically all-boys team.

Izzy quit figure skating after one year in third grade, but wanted to keep skating in a less “girly” way as dance was not her thing. Her older brother, East senior Travers Wong, had been playing ice hockey for two years already. She decided if he could do it, so could she.

Finding a groove for the game immediately after practicing a few times with her brother, she loved the physical contact that came with the sport that she couldn’t find with figure skating. 

“I don’t care about the contact,” Wong said. “I’m not scared.”

She began playing hockey as the out position, responsible for handling the puck and skating up and down the ice. After two years, she made the choice to move to goalie.

“My stick skills weren’t good enough to play the out position so I said, ‘Why not try goalie?” Wong said. 

By fifth grade, Wong was a dominant force in the goal for the “squirt” team, the youth team at Carriage Club. 

In August, 2021 she was faced with one of the hardest decisions she’s made during her hockey career — choosing whether to play on the all-girls team or make the unexpected decision to play with the boys. 

Not many girls join the highschool team because of the lenient checking rules — the biggest difference between boys and girls hockey. Most girls drop out of hockey because of this rule but Izzy wasn’t phased.

“I think in this day and age when anyone wants to work hard and try something that’s difficult, you have to support them,” head coach Joe Zwillenberg said.

Izzy’s parents also support their daughter’s decision to play with the boys. 

“I had no concern about her playing on the boys’ team because I knew she was safe in the goal, but even if she did want to play out I would’ve let her,” Izzy’s mother Heather Wong said. 

The biggest concern for Izzy was that she would be treated differently by the team due to her gender. It ended up being the opposite, according to Izzy. 

“In hockey, protecting your goalie is always a big deal, but if anyone gets close to Izzy, those boys protect her like it’s their sister,” Zwillenberg said.

According to Izzy, the boys don’t make her feel any different for being the only girl on their team. The refs, on the other hand, she feels are quicker to whistle to avoid getting her hit. 

“I feel like when they see my ponytail or braid they immediately assume I can’t be as good as the boys,” Wong said. 

What she loves most about being on the all-boys team is being able to inspire the younger girls that go to Carriage Club. She feels that she’s showing those girls that it really is okay to continue to play hockey, even with the boys.

“The younger girls come to my games and cheer for me, and it was just really cool to see girls younger than me watching me play,” Wong said.

Izzy doesn’t want to be treated differently, so she does everything in her power to be just like the boys all of the time. Even when she was given the choice of her own locker room, she denied the offer so that she wouldn’t miss out on any of the team bonding, like pre-game speeches and post-game celebrations.

Wong hopes to continue her career as the Penguins goalkeeper and go with them to the championship.