Members of the U-M women’s club hockey team celebrate a win. The team is responsible for funding its own activities, can only use the ice when the DI men’s team isn’t using it, and do not have a locker room at Yost to store their gear. | Courtesy of Katie Cummings
On February 19, Farmington Hills native Megan Keller thrilled fans of Team USA when she scored a dramatic overtime goal to clinch the gold medal for women’s hockey at the Winter Olympics. But while Keller is from Michigan, she didn’t go to U-M. Instead, she attended Boston College before joining the Boston Fleet of the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
She couldn’t have done either if she’d stayed home. Detroit has yet to get a women’s pro team, and U-M lacks a Division I team sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In fact, there are no women’s DI squads in Michigan, although there are seven DI men’s teams across the state.
Instead, the U-M women’s team plays at the club level, meaning it has to fund all its own activities. Each member has to pay approximately $2,500 a year to participate, although the club landed a four-year sponsorship in 2025 from Community Financial Credit Union that covers some travel expenses. Members don’t receive the athletic scholarships earmarked for students on U-M’s twenty-nine NCAA-level teams (fifteen are for women). The women can only use the ice when the men’s team isn’t using it, and they don’t have a permanent locker room to store their gear.
“It’s all those things that come with not being an NCAA Division I team,” says Katie Cummings, president of the U-M women’s hockey club team.
By contrast, Big 10 rivals Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, and Minnesota have women’s DI varsity teams, dating back as far as the 1990s. Why hasn’t U-M, where men have played varsity hockey for 104 years, created a DI-level women’s team?
Related: Susan McDowell: The godmother of local women’s hockey (Jan. 2020)
It’s not for lack of support. U-M’s highest-profile booster of women’s hockey, amateur and professional, is Regent Denise Ilitch, a Democrat from Birmingham, whose family owns the Detroit Red Wings.
In March 2024, Ilitch called for U-M to create a varsity women’s team, which led to a feasibility study that October by College Sports Associates. It found that in the 2023–24 season, forty-five women’s DI players came from Michigan. The only other states with more DI players were Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York. Ilitch notes the state has more than 5,600 female players in organized competition ranging from age six to adult, out of the 100,000 female players nationwide, according to USA Hockey.
The study estimated it would cost U-M about $4.5 million a year to operate a women’s program, which could conservatively generate $400,000 a year in revenue, leaving the university $4.1 million in the hole. That did not include the expense of scholarships for varsity team members, which would cost another $700,000 a year based on 2024 tuition rates.
For comparison, according to the feasibility study, the Michigan men’s hockey team cost $4.71 million in the 2022–23 fiscal year and ran a deficit of $900,000. Michigan doesn’t report line item costs for its athletic programs, so more-current numbers were not available.
The cost of providing a DI-level place to play would be far higher. The study estimated U-M would need to spend $50 million to expand Yost to the south to include facilities for a women’s team. Building a new arena that could accommodate both teams would cost $300 million with one rink, and $330 million with separate rinks.
Ilitch says she knows fans are protective of Yost, where hockey has been played since 1973. But even with a new arena, she stressed that Yost could be preserved and repurposed.
The study saw three ways to fund a women’s program: first, by using athletic department funds; second, by generating its own income with an infusion from the university; and third, by finding a benefactor to cover the program. Penn State launched its women’s program thanks to a $102 million donation from Terry and Kim Pegula, the billionaire owners of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres and the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.
Based on the study, Ilitch told the Associated Press that a women’s hockey program was essentially a matter of if, not when. But nothing concrete has developed since its publication, to Ilitch’s frustration. “It’s definitely not going quick enough for me,” she says.
Ilitch says issues in the athletic department around raising money for Name, Image, and Likeness subsidies, as well as turbulence in the football program, “really seemed to slow momentum.”
Regardless, she remains determined. “It’s a no-brainer, the love of women’s hockey in Michigan and the fact that we should have a DI team.”
In an email to the Observer, U-M athletic director Warde Manuel writes that the door to women’s hockey remains open.
“We recognize the passion and enthusiasm surrounding women’s ice hockey and the broader growth of women’s sports,” he writes. “As our athletic department navigates significant changes in the collegiate athletics model, we must balance the opportunity of adding any additional sport with long-term sustainability.”
He adds, “We will continue to study what expansion would require and consider its viability within the context of our overall department strategy.”
Ilitch says the university first needs to create the program, then raise money for it. She adds that she has been contacted by and met with potential donors as recently as early March, but without the university’s commitment, none have pledged financial support.
Now, she hopes to put the idea in front of new U-M president Kent Syverud, who is scheduled to take charge July 1. Ilitch notes there is a varsity women’s program at Syracuse University, where Syverud is currently chancellor and president. “I’m hoping he’ll be able to regain momentum,” Ilitch says.
Meanwhile, the women’s hockey club soldiers on. Cummings says team members, including some who played on the same Farmington Hills team as golden goal–scorer Keller, gathered to watch the women’s Olympic final together.
Cummings, a Nashville native who has played since age twelve, says, “We all hope to see better opportunities for younger girls. It’s huge, and it just keeps growing.”
Calls & Letters, June 2026
Women’s Hockey: U-M’s Unmet Goal
Thanks for the excellent article about the challenges faced by the University of Michigan’s women’s club ice hockey team as they try to gain NCAA Division 1 status (“Iced Out,” April).
It’s worth noting that in 2023–24, the University of Michigan Alumnae Council designated the team as the recipient of contributions to its annual “Spirit of 1917” fundraising campaign. Those of us who attended the council’s annual spring luncheon that year had the pleasure of meeting members of the team and their coach, and learning more about the challenges they apparently are still facing.
It was another example of how more than 150 years after women were admitted to Michigan, organizations like the Alumnae Council and the ice hockey team still have to work to try to “level the playing field” for women at the university.
Sara Fitzgerald
Tysons, VA
I would love Women’s hockey. But the costs are enormous and the Men’s program is, as I get it, more or less a break even.
Yost is barely suitable (well, it isn’t) for the Men’s team. The locker room facilities for the men make no sense, and they are dreadful for the opposition.
Since Fisher Field also makes no sense (batters and fans look right into the sun), I would suggest demolishing Fisher, moving it down state street, and expanding Yost with two sheets in that direction. Costs? I dunno, maybe 300 million or more. Plus, the yearly subsidy for a Women’s team would be pretty profound, at least in the short term.
Alternatives? Re-purpose the old Coliseum. It was used for hockey for many years and is close to campus and suitable. Stil very expensive but a lot less than real solutions.