The Oswego State women’s ice hockey team joined other collegiate teams across the nation to show its support for Boston Pride forward Denna Laing of the National Women’s Hockey League, with the trending Twitter hashtag #14strong.
In the first annual Women’s Winter Classic the Boston Pride of the NWHL squared off with the Les Canadiennes, a team from the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.
During this game Denna Laing suffered a severe spinal cord injury after falling on the ice. This news spread quickly and an outpouring of support followed. Numerous collegiate teams took to Twitter and posted a picture of the team in the shape of the number 14, her number, at center ice.
“A lot of us had seen the game where Denna was injured, I’m afraid,” said Oswego State head coach Diane Dillon. “It just kind of started and we saw someone had done it. Just a couple of teams had done something and we thought that that was a nice thing to do so we decided to do something as well, and then that next week it absolutely exploded.”
The trend spread after the St. Lawrence University women’s hockey team posted the picture supporting Laing and her family. This simple gesture that showed support and awareness of the accident went a long way for the Laing family and the women’s hockey community as a whole.
“The hockey world is pretty small,” Dillon said. “I had met Denna. I know her father, he is the coach in the Assabet [hockey] program where she grew up, tried to recruit Denna of course she was going to go in [Div. I]. An excellent student as well, ended up in the Ivy League, but we all kind of know each other and when something like this happens we really do rally.”
This same community support has been on display before in the hockey community.
Hockey Coaches Care is a foundation created by the American Hockey Coaches Association to help out members of the amateur hockey community in America.
“It’s a group that all allow the college hockey coaches and family to donate to and we use it to help each other, anyone who is in need,” Dillon said.
NHL teams have also showed similar displays. The Boston Bruins held a tribute to Laing prior to one of its games against the Vancouver Canucks back on Jan. 21.
A GoFundMe page was put up to help the Laing family pay medical bills but was taken down after a request from the family. Just the sentiment and the show of support sufficed.
“I don’t know if there is much we can do individually to help her,” Dillon said. “We just wanted to lend our support and really educate our own team that we take care of each other.”
The entire women’s hockey community in the United States has been growing, as one can see from the enormous amount of support that continues to expand. The women’s game is now much more popular and because of the start of the NWHL it will continue to grow, Dillon said.
“Women’s hockey has been growing every year, exponentially,” Dillon said. “For a while, the women’s portion of hockey was the fastest growing segment in USA Hockey in terms of growth in the game. So I think women’s hockey in the last ten years has gone a long way.”
