Meredith Lang was a hockey enthusiast.
She liked the game well enough to play in high school but left it behind to pursue a track and field career that carried her to the 2004 U.S. Olympic trials.
Life rolled on. Hockey morphed into distant memory. Then, Lang had two daughters. And as tends to happen, those kids changed everything.
It started with Lang’s then-6-year-old, Aubrey, announcing she wanted to play hockey. That request took Lang back to her own playing days as the only Black girl lacing up skates and unexpectedly ignited a passion that would change the course of several futures.
“I thought I was going to have a track runner [for a kid], not a hockey player,” Lang told ESPN recently. “But when Aubrey said she wanted to play, I tried to figure out how to get her into the hockey space.”
Though Aubrey was enjoying the sport, it was clear there weren’t many girls of color like her on the ice. It was the same struggle with feeling unseen that Lang had experienced in hockey, unspooling decades later upon a new generation. Only now, Lang felt equipped to do something about it.
It was the speed of hockey that drew her in.
Born in St. Louis, Lang lived there until she was 12. She went along to her first Blues game with her younger brother, Matt, in what became an unintentionally formative experience.
“I remember watching them play and just being enthralled,” Lang recalled. “It was so quick and fast. I loved the speed. I don’t know why I was drawn to it, but it wasn’t like I thought at the time I could play it. Then when we moved to Minnesota, and I saw how big hockey was there, it was like, ‘OK, now it’s my opportunity to play.'”
Matt took to the ice first following their relocation. He even appeared as the goalie for Team Trinidad in “D2: The Mighty Ducks,” which shot in their area. Lang was more hesitant to jump in but by eighth grade felt inspired by Matt’s ascension to give hockey a chance.
It was immediately clear Lang didn’t exactly fit the mold. Not that it would…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – NHL…