Grand Marais resident and noted figure skater Deb Mueller donned hockey skates recently to play in a 40th reunion game of the University of Minnesota Amazons. Mueller is pictured here in an early Amazon game.
Sandwiched between her days as a competitive figure skater and later as a competitive marathon runner, Deb Mueller also played a little hockey.
In fact the long-time Cook County resident was at the very beginning of what turned into competitive hockey programs for high school and collegiate women who now play at the highest levels.
On October 25, 2014, Mueller took part in a 40th reunion game with other charter members who played from 1974-1980. Following the game she and the rest of the women were honored at the Saturday night women’s hockey game as the No. 1 rated Gophers took on the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
“I felt strong going in but after our one-hour game felt humbled and a bit done in! Knackered as they say. But it was a great experience to see where out fledgling beginnings ended up. Wow, have those women got it all!” said Mueller.
In 1974 Mueller played with the Amazons, an all-women’s intramural team at the University of Minnesota. Their first official game that winter was played on the ice at hallowed Williams Arena against the Hotsticks, an all male team, but the game was in doubt because she and her teammates were wearing figure skates.
According to the University’s collegiate newspaper, Minnesota Daily, “The first Amazons all women’s intramural hockey game almost didn’t happen because the referee had to run across the street to check with the Rec. Sports Department about whether the team could actually play the game in figure skates. The game was delayed until the ref came back with the affirmative! {Women’s hockey pioneers Heather McKay and Deb Mueller felt confident that their figure skates would be allowed because they had already played hockey in their figure skates on a men’s intramural team.]”
The Daily noted that the Hotsticks were quite a bit taller than their counterparts, but the women were better skaters. Still, the ladies lost 16-0 because they didn’t know how to play hockey. It took several months for everyone’s hockey skills to improve enough to actually play the game. From that time on they fought for funds and ice time and by 1978, when they were then called the U of M women’s hockey team, they were traveling around the country competing against other women’s intramural collegiate teams.
Today women’s hockey is an Olympic sport and Minnesota produces some of the finest women hockey players in the world. All because Mueller and a couple of her friends wanted to show that given the chance, hockey was a sport for women as well as for men.
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