Category: Sports

Lilly Hartnell has been playing hockey for four years, and has evolved into one of the top players around while earning a reputation for her skills as a defender and proving she’s as hard-nosed as they come.

And yet, 14-year-old Lilly has never played a hockey game against girls.

That will change this summer, when Lilly reports to Pennsylvania to join the girls AAA team in the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite hockey program, one of the top youth hockey programs in the country.

“It’s going to be different,’’ she says.

Lilly, however, is ready.

Though she hasn’t been playing as long as many of her future teammates who start at much younger ages in the Midwest and Northeast, Lilly has been playing on the boys Jr. Bulls travel team out at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon since she began.

One thing is for sure – she’s plenty tough enough. “When she was playing Pee Wee division (11-12 year olds), there was no hitting allowed,” said her mother, Valerie. “This one here, she’s so aggressive, she led the league in penalty minutes.”

She might just be the hardest-hitting freckle-faced, braces-wearing girl around. An Arbor Greene resident and eighth-grader at Terrace Community Middle School, Lilly’s story may be unique locally, but it’s not entirely uncommon. Because there is only one elite travel hockey team in the state — the Lady Vipers in Lakeland — there are few opportunities for girls players to hone their craft against other girls.

So, they do what Lilly does — play for boys travel teams, which is rare, or move north in search of better opportunities and competition.

Lilly has Division I-A college hockey aspirations, and knew she would eventually have to find a girls’ program to play for. Last summer, while competing at a Team USA developmental camp in Kent, OH, she made friends with a number of players who are in the Pittsburgh Penguins youth program. They encouraged her to apply for a tryout, and others suggested the St. Louis Blues and Dallas North Stars programs as well.

In April, Lilly got her tryout, along with 70 others. After the first two days, she anxiously checked her cell phone, hoping not to receive the dreaded “You did not make it” email.  After refreshing her screen, and those on her parents phone and laptop, “a few million times,” the email never came. Lilly had survived another cut from a field of 40, before playing herself into one of 16 spots on the team.

“It was nerve wracking,’’ she says. When she got the good news, her family celebrated in their hotel room with screams, hugs and tears.

That’s pretty heady stuff for a player with only four years of hockey experience, but succeeding on ice is in her blood.

Her father Sean and his twin brother Stacey, born in Kamloops, British Columbia, both played collegiately for Ohio State. Her grandmother was a figure skater who taught kids to skate for decades in Canada, and her grandfather owns a rink. And, her cousin, Scott Hartnell, is in his 16th NHL season as a left wing for the Columbus Blue Jackets after stints in Nashville and Philadelphia.

But, don’t ask Lilly her favorite hockey team — she says she has to like her cousin’s Blue Jackets, her hometown Tampa Bay Lightning, the Blackhawks (since she was born in Chicago) and the Penguins because she will be playing in their elite youth program.

“I’m a mash-up,’’ she says, laughing. 

While her three older sisters never expressed any interest in hockey — twins Lauren and Layne play college soccer at Division II West Liberty University in Wheeling, WV — Lilly asked to play when she was nine and instantly loved it.

“The second day I got off the skates, I told my dad I was going to be the best I could at this,’’ Lilly says.

Just a few months ago, Lilly thought for a moment she might be done with hockey. During a February travel game, Valerie says her daughter took an intentional cheap shot from a 6-foot-2, 200-pound opponent, sending Lilly into the boards and out of the rink on a stretcher.

“He literally tried to hurt me,’’ says Lilly, who is accepted and protected by her male teammates, she said, but occasionally, an opponent doesn’t take too kindly to being stopped by her on defense.

“I about had a heart attack,’’ Valerie says. “It was scary.”

Sean was coaching the team, and he rushed out to tend to Lilly, while an assistant coach immediately said to call for an ambulance. Her parents had decided last year that this spring would be Lilly’s last season, as the boys she played against had reached puberty and were growing bigger and stronger.

There is no open ice hitting allowed in the women’s game, although things can still get a little chippy when players get tangled up near the boards.

Like a true hockey player, though, Lilly returned to the ice a week later. She finished out the season with the Jr. Bulls, which ended in Nashville the first weekend in May, at a tournament.

Now, she impatiently is finishing out the school year while she waits for her golden opportunity in Pittsburgh. Lilly and her mother will soon start looking for an apartment, where they will stay for the upcoming Pens AAA season while keeping their home in Arbor Greene.

The schedule isn’t out yet, but last year’s AAA team opened the season with a Toronto-Boston-Vermont road trip, and also played games in Prague and Italy. Lilly doesn’t know what’s in store for 2017-18, but she can’t wait to find out.

She is confident this coming year will get her one step closer to her goal of playing collegiately at Ohio State, and then in the Olympics.

“I feel like this is definitely going to help me grow as a person and as a hockey player,’’ she says. “While I’m going to miss my teammates (at the Jr. Bulls), this is going to be great.”