The National Women’s Hockey League’s motto and mission has been “Making History.” Admittedly a lofty task, the league has largely lived up to its own high expectations. In its inaugural year as the first professional women’s hockey league, the league garnered Dunkin Donuts as corporate sponsor and signed a deal with ESPN3 and New England Sports Network to air several regular season games. The success of the fledgling league is due in large part to the skill of the players. They put on fast-paced, high- energy games each week and work tirelessly to promote both the league and the sport. Twenty- four year old Denna Laing is one such player. An Ivy League graduate turned pro hockey player, Denna Laing is one of many women who get to play the sport she loves as a profession and serve as a pioneer for the growing sport of women’s hockey.
Denna Laing of the Boston Pride
In 2014, Denna graduated from Princeton with a degree in politics. During her tenure with the Princeton Tigers, she racked up 77 points and served as captain her junior and senior year. The Massachusetts native was drafted by the Boston Blades of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. In her rookie year, she helped the Bladies capture their second Clarkson Cup.
Denna celebrating her team’s Clarkson Cup victory
In the off-season, she jumped ship and signed with the Boston Pride of the newly-formed National Women’s Hockey League. Her full-time job is with the Essex county DA’s office as a witness victim advocate.
Despite all her accomplishments and contributions, it took a catastrophic injury to catapult her into the national spotlight. On December 31st, Denna participated in the first ever Women’s Winter Classic, the first outdoor women’s hockey game. The game took place at the New England Patriot’s home field Gillette Stadium the day before the 2016 Winter Classic between the NHL’s Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens. Prior to the women’s game, the men took to the ice for practice. The glaring sun soon proved to cause many problems for players. Bruins and Canadiens players alike lamented that one particular patch of ice that was receiving the most sunlight was “soft” and “slushy.” Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg even described the ice as “dangerous.”
While battling for the puck in the aforementioned sunny corner with opposing Les Canadiennes player in the first period of play, Denna stepped on a stick, lost her balance, and fell headfirst into the boards. She was subsequently stretchered off and rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital. Play continued with the game ending in a 1-1 tie.
Denna being stretchered off the ice
The Laing family made no public statement about Denna’s injury or condition until January 8th. According to Denna’s family, Denna underwent an emergency seven hour surgery upon arrival at Mass Gen to repair “several fractured and shattered” vertebrae. Denna suffered an apparent “significant spinal injury” at Gillette Stadium leaving her with limited movement in her arms and no feeling from the chest down.
Denna shortly after colliding with the boards
The hockey community rallied together to show support for Denna. The Boston Bruins ownership group announced that they would donate $200,000 to aid in Denna’s recovery. Bruins centerman Patrice Bergeron donated his personal suite to be raffled off to raise funds. The Bruins and Canadiens auctioned off game-worn jerseys to raise funds as well. Players and teams of all levels took to social media to show support and solidarity with their fellow player. Pride teammates started #Cards4Denna, an initiative to gather cards to decorate Denna’s rehab facility.
Despite suffering a critical injury and facing a lengthy and difficult recovery, Denna has remained upbeat and confident. In her first Facebook post, she called December 31st the “best day of [her] life” saying she “would never take those moments back.” Two weeks after her injury, she shared a video on her Twitter of her speaking publicly for the first time since the injury saying simply “Hello, I’m back.”
In subsequent posts, she showed more of her resilience, approaching each day of rehab with the same level of enthusiasm and perseverance she brings to hockey. Within a week of entering rehab, she set a lofty goal for herself: “do one thing better or do one thing more than [she] did yesterday.”
I didn’t want this article to simply be about a hockey player who suffered an injury; I wanted to talk about a pioneer of women’s sports whose infectious positivity and seemingly infinite amount of resolve remains even when facing of such adversity. I can’t imagine having the sort of indomitable strenght Denna Laing has if I was in her position, but her spirit inspires me to remain strong when dealing with whatever challenges I may face in my own life.