Support your local women’s collegiate hockey team!

Written by Tia Foxx

While it's unlikely that Arizona will receive a Professional Women's Hockey team anytime soon, Watch Women Play decided to check out the local college team near us: The Arizona State University (ASU) Women's Hockey Club Team.

After the game, we sat down with assistant coach Sheridan Gloyd, and we realized how much is happening with this program that most people in Phoenix & beyond don't know about.

First thing to know: it's not NCAA hockey, but why not?

At ASU, their men's hockey team is not a club team, but an official NCAA team. The women's club team competes in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), the national association for college hockey outside the NCAA, at the Division 1 level.

So we asked Sheridan the question I'd been wondering about: why is the women's team a club team and not part of the NCAA like the men's team? Her answer was simple.

"It's actually not up to the team, and moving up to the NCAA is the school's decision, which also comes back to things like Title IX guidelines and what the school is ready to fund."

In our preparation for this interview, here's something that stood out to us at Watch Women Play: There are 45 NCAA Division I women's hockey programs, and not one is in Arizona or anywhere west of Minnesota.

If you're a girl growing up playing hockey out West, your NCAA options are a long way from home.

The program is growing anyway

ASU women's hockey started in 2016-17 and won back-to-back WWCHL tournament titles in 2023 and 2024, making ACHA nationals both years. In the ACHA's women's D1 rankings this fall, ASU sits at No. 9.

This season the program added a Division 2 team, and head coach Lindsey Ellis told Cronkite News they had "more players at tryouts than they could keep." Clearly, there's no shortage in enthusiasm among female athletes.

Sheridan's path

This is the part I loved, because her story looks a lot like the advice we give people trying to break into sports.

She started as an athlete. Sheridan is an Arizona native who played five seasons for ASU, served as assistant captain and set the program record for most assists.

She gave back first. Before joining ASU's staff, she coached the Arizona Kachinas, the state's only all-girls youth hockey program, working with players from 12U to 19U. She also spent a year as Assistant Hockey Director.

She kept asking. While she was still a player, she kept telling her head coach she wanted to coach. She was told to wait until the teammates she played with graduated but when the staff needed help, she got her shot sooner than planned. She's now in her third season as an assistant coach.

Her degrees didn't decide her career. She earned her undergrad in Criminology and Criminal Justice with a Biology minor, then realized those fields were not the careers she wanted. So she asked herself what she was actually interested in: Sports.

We have the same Master's. Sheridan earned her Master of Sports Law and Business at ASU, the same program Tia from Watch Women Play finished. She now works full time for a Marketing Agency.

Women & Girls' hockey is having a moment

Sheridan's story is happening while the sport is growing fast:

USA Hockey registered 103,324 girls and women in 2025-26, up from just over 93,000 in 2023.

The 2026 Olympic women's gold medal game averaged 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock, the most-watched women's hockey game ever, per Nielsen.

The PWHL drew 1,116,497 fans across 120 regular season games in 2025-26. That's an average of 9,304 a game, up 28% from the season before.

The PWHL grew to 12 teams this season, including Las Vegas, the league's first team in the American Southwest. The league says girls' and women's youth hockey participation in Nevada is up 600% since 2017.

Arizona doesn't have a PWHL team.

But we do have college women's hockey right here, and it needs fans.

Why you should go

I asked Sheridan what she wishes people knew about women's hockey. Her answer: "People don't realize how fun hockey games are to watch because of how fast it is."

As big fans of basketball, we agree. There's no downtime except for after each period, and something is always happening while you're right up against the glass.

How to support ASU Women's Hockey

Go to a home game at Mountain America Iceplex in Tempe. Tickets were $10 and it's free for students. Here is their schedule: Division 1 and Division 2

Donate to the team.

Shop the team's Amazon wishlist.

Follow @womenshockeyasu on Instagram

Thanks to Sheridan for taking the time to talk with us. See you at the rink!

Sources

Tia Foxx
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