UNM women's ice hockey squad makes home debut

The results on the ice thus far for the fledgling University of New Mexico women’s ice hockey team are not nearly as important as the simple fact that the Lobos are indeed on the ice.

Several years in the making, UNM’s women’s program, which plays in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, opened its history with a couple of losses last month, but now it’s set to host its first-ever home games Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the McDermott Athletic Center in Rio Rancho.

Admission is free but the team is asking for donations. And the team also is seeking sponsorships.

It was an idea that was born nearly five years ago as team co-founder and president Kiki Langenwalter’s high school and youth careers were drawing to an end and she having a difficult time finding an affordable option to play collegiate hockey.

“When I was a senior or a junior in high school, I was looking at all these schools out of state; getting recruited by them,” she said. “And I did have the opportunity to go out of state and play hockey, but it’s just so expensive, and there’s not a lot of scholarships out there. And we always wanted to grow hockey in New Mexico, since we only have one girls team across the entire state, so I just wanted to start something new at UNM.”

So she got together with club teammate Mia Hollister to dive into establishing a women’s program here.

“It’s a long process that’s still going on,” said Langenwalter, a junior defenseman. “Basically, you have to apply to the school and go through, it’s like a month-long certification process, apply for funding, apply to use the logos. It’s a long thing. And then we obviously had to recruit girls, some from out of state.”

When they finally got the go-ahead, then it became a matter of finding enough players willing to be part of a start-up program in the desert, which was something of steep hurdle, she said.

“You have to have 10 skaters and a goalie, and we have 11 skaters and three goalies, so we just made it,” Langenwalter said. “But it was looking a little rough there for a while.”

In addition to the seven New Mexico players — coming from all corners of the state, from Taos to Albuquerque — on the squad, other Lobos come from as far away as Anchorage, Alaska, and Tampa, Florida.

For forward Brielle Akagi, who will go down as the program’s first goal scorer, coming to Albuquerque from Anchorage was both a financial decision and one based on the relationships she quickly built during a tryout camp here.

“The only concern that I had up there was that to play anybody, you had to fly, and the odds of people flying up to Alaska to play were very low, and that meant a lot of money,” she said. “And so I wanted to go out of state somewhere. I came here. I tried out at Utah, as well, but this was the cheaper school for me and I loved the team, so I ended up coming here.”

And about that first goal?

“I don’t really remember it,” Akagi said with a smile. “When I play, I kind of black out. But thinking back, it was a good breakaway. It was a foot race to the puck, and I beat them to it. I remember coming up on the goalie. I wanted to make a move. That’s like my favorite thing to do, but looking at her, she was really far back and off to one side. So I just shot it in. It was fun. It’s like it doesn’t really feel real that that’s the first goal of our organization yet, but I think it’ll sink in eventually.”

It was a financial decision that brought goaltender Peyton Swanson from Colorado to the Lobos, as well.

“I was always looking to play college hockey and all the options in-state were unfortunately out of our price range because in-state were just very big schools, which makes it hard to stay there,” she said. “And I always wanted to get out of town and travel a little bit. So coming down here offered an opportunity for me to do what I wanted to do.”

Now that the Lobos are officially a team and playing, it’s already time to begin peeking toward, and building for, the future.

“For this season, we just want to build a good foundation and get our name out there and start to build a good relationship with the community,” Langenwalter said. “We’re so far, so good. We have a lot of people supporting us, and then next year we’ll really recruit hard and be more competitive. I’ve always been on the younger end of my (club) team and I know that there’s a lot of girls coming up behind me, and I wanted to have this built for them by the time they graduate.”