How has your time playing at The Whale shaped your hockey\u00a0careers?<\/p>\n
Hartje:\u00a0College is a formative time in your life, but playing for the Yale women\u2019s ice hockey team was one of the best decisions I\u2019ve ever made. We were lucky enough to go to the Frozen Four in my sophomore year and Anna\u2019s freshman year. We were ranked first in the nation at one point. We did a lot of winning while we were at Yale. Playing at Yale shaped my hockey career in terms of helping to develop a sense of self in hockey, a leadership style as a captain, and being surrounded by like-minded people who cared so\u00a0much.<\/p>\n
Bargman: Being able to go to the Frozen Four pushed my hockey career to a place of growth and helped me develop so much on the ice and off the\u00a0ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s it been like playing together again for the New York\u00a0Sirens?<\/p>\n
Bargman:\u00a0It\u2019s almost surreal. When I got drafted to New York, Elle had texted me, and one of the first things that I thought was, \u201cWow! We just spent three years together, and now I\u2019m lucky enough to get another.\u201d It was good to have a friendly face and somebody that I trusted and knew already on and off the\u00a0ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hartje: When I knew Anna was in the draft, I really wanted to be able to play with her. The odds weren\u2019t great; there\u2019s eight teams and one her. So, I was excited when her name got announced in New York. We were line mates for three years [at Yale] and did pretty well together. We\u2019ve always had some great chemistry, and it\u2019s always so much fun to play with\u00a0her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why do you think women\u2019s hockey is becoming more popular in the\u00a0U.S.?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hartje:\u00a0There\u2019s a lot that came before us, including attempts at different leagues. This is the first time where all the best players in the world are really condensing in one league and wanting to make this thing work. The biggest reason why we\u2019re seeing so much growth is because up top, they\u2019re really committed to providing the resources, the funding, and the media availability and are just pushing this thing\u00a0forward.<\/p>\n
Bargman: The fan base and the interest has always been there under the surface. This was an investment for Mark Walter [founding financier of the PWHL], but he trusted Billie Jean King [who was instrumental in organizing funding for the PWHL\u2019s launch] and the women who said there\u2019s a market\u00a0here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What are your hopes for women\u2019s hockey moving\u00a0forward?<\/p>\n
Bargman: I hope that it continues to grow and that it continues to get the attention that it deserves. I hope that girls growing up now and girls growing up in the future can set their sights on the PWHL.<\/p>\n
Hartje:\u00a0In the near term, we\u2019re trying to expand to new markets. Right now, there\u2019s only eight teams, but it\u2019s been announced that there\u2019s going to be some more added. I think people forget this is a very new league. Also, there\u2019s not a national broadcast deal for the entire year yet. Right now, you can watch on YouTube. But I think getting those casual viewers \u2014 where you\u2019re just flipping through channels, and you can see the PWHL game in the United States \u2014 is a short-term goal that we\u2019re working\u00a0toward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Has there been a favorite moment of playing together for the Sirens\u00a0yet?<\/p>\n
Hartje: We got to be reunited on the line together for one game in Vancouver [in March], and it was sort of like riding a bike. I kind of just always know where she\u2019s going to be. When you play with someone for three years and you\u2019re practicing every single day together, I think that comes with the territory. We\u2019ve always worked so well together. So, when they put us on the line together, we were really excited, and Anna ended up\u00a0scoring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bargman:\u00a0I just remember singing the Bulldog fight song to Elle, and she was just like, \u201cThis feels\u00a0good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How has your time playing at The Whale shaped your hockey\u00a0careers? Hartje:\u00a0College is a formative time in your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-206332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}