SEATTLE -- Growing up as a small-town kid with big dreams of reaching the NHL is a story that's been told for more than a century -- about men.
Most girls never had that dream, because no woman had ever reached those heights. Part of it has to do with the fact there hasn't been a long history. Canada and the United States created women's national teams in 1987, while the first women's world championships was in 1990. The Olympics eventually added a women's tournament in 1998. There was the American Women's College Hockey Alliance that started in 1997 that saw women's collegiate teams compete for a national title, but the NCAA didn't hold its first tournament until 2001.