MHM 2018 Oct-digital

COLLEGE HOCKEY PRIMER
GOPHERS WOMEN:
PANNEK
ATTACKS
KELLY PANNEK RETURN TO THE GOPHERS A HUMBLE WORLD CHAMPION
by Dustin Nelson
It’s difficult to encapsulate
everything that happened
to Kelly Pannek since the
last time she put on the Gophers’
“M” for a game. It was March 17, 2017 in a 3-4
loss to the eventual national champion Clarkson
Golden Knights. It capped off a season where she led
the nation in points and was a top-10 Patty Kazmaier
Award finalist. That was just 18 months ago.
Since that game, the Gopher captain received a
somewhat unexpected invite to the Team USA senior
camp, participated in a boycott that changed women’s
hockey, won gold at the 2017 World Championships,
made the Olympic roster, and won gold at the
Olympics.
Looking at her skill set and her impressive on-ice
vision, it seems almost inevitable she’d be carrying
the accolades she has, but it wasn’t a given to Pannek.
“I didn’t know where I stood [prior to Worlds],” she
says standing in Ridder arena, not far from a mural of
Gopher Olympians that has yet to add her face. “I’d
made a few camps, and I’d been a part of the program
itself for a while, but never felt like I was at that point
where I’d be getting a chance to be on the team.”
Pannek had never received an invite to a U.S.
Women’s Team senior camp. Then the call came.
“After getting that call it was crazy. It was a
whirlwind. I just tried to focus on surviving at that level,
to be honest.”
Though, she says, the speed with which she was
thrust onto the national team helped her to not think
ahead to the possibility of the Olympic roster.
Continued on next page
Kelly Pannek (19) returns to the
ice for the Gophers for the first
time in 18 months — and plenty
has changed in her life.
Photo by Brad Rempel / Gopher Athletics
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