Women's Ice Hockey at IU is preparing for the jump from a student-run club to an official member in Division II of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
The ACHA is the national association for non-NCAA collegiate hockey and offers greater competition than typical club leagues. Division II is separated into four regions with 81 participating schools in the 2025-2026 school year.
Being part of the ACHA increases the intensity of play and provides a set of standardized procedures and regulations. The team will now be competing against other Midwest teams from schools like the University of Michigan, University of Illinois and Ohio State.
When the team started in 2020, it invited members of all levels to participate in order to have enough people to play and promote an inclusive environment, said Dillon Frechen, a career coach at the Kelley School of Business who began coaching the team in spring 2024.
“I'm an international student, and I wanted to try something that I probably wouldn't try in Hong Kong, like ice hockey,” senior Katherine Leung said. “Coming into the team as someone who's at a beginner level, when everybody is so much better than you, there's definitely a struggle at first. But the team is really embracing different levels.”
When captain Sydney Miller started, she just thought the sport looked cool.
“(I) saw girls and bike helmets and street hockey sticks and I was like, ‘Oh, I'll probably just mess around,’’’ Miller said. “And within three years, we've turned into a competitive ACHA two division team, and I did not expect it.”
Senior Isabella La Bella didn't expect she’d get the chance to play women’s hockey at IU. She assumed she’d have to play on a men's team and was pleasantly surprised to find a women's team available.
Because the team is still a student club, it's not allowed to cut players and must find a space for anyone who wants to join, Frechen said. But that sort of mentality has been part of the club since the beginning.
“It's really cool that there's a space at IU for women who are 18, 19 years old to be like, ‘Hey, I've roller skated before. I kind of want to try playing hockey now.’ Like, where else can you do that?” Frechen said. “We want to honor that while we also make this transition into a more competitive environment.”
With much more interest in the program last season and a freshman class with many experienced hockey players, the team decided to request to join the ACHA Division II. Frechen worried that if the team didn’t join, it would struggle to recruit people who played competitive hockey in high school. After building up the roster and raising funds to pay for travel, the team was approved.
Now, the travel team, which is now the ACHA Division II team, competes at a higher level, while the practice team is open to anyone who wants to join.
“I think it's going to be the attitude and the commitment and just see who's here to be there and show what it means to be an actual college athlete,” Miller said. “You know, it's gonna be two practices a week, (and) you have to work out off ice.”
However, the team has faced its share of challenges, including a struggle for practice time at Frank Southern Ice Arena. There, Indiana shares the facility with the city, high school and youth teams.
“We had issues with scheduling where we had to cancel a game because there was a kid's birthday party that they forgot they double-booked, and that's messed up,” Miller said. “But since we were a club, we couldn't fight that. But now that we're D2, we're fighting for more ice time … and the rink and the city are really supportive.”
Another challenge to ice hockey in the area: Frank Southern Ice Arena isn't open year-round. The old infrastructure means the rink is unable to keep ice frozen in the southern Indiana heat and it closes from March to September. In the summer months, Bloomington players travel to Columbus, Indiana, or Indianapolis.
Despite the challenges, Frechen thinks this is a great time to be a women’s ice hockey player. He noted the launch of the Professional Women’s Ice Hockey League in 2024 and the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team’s gold-medal finish at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
As Indiana prepares for its first season as a member of ACHA, the Hoosiers are not most excited about the competition but for the relationships that might form between teammates.
“I think leadership is not about telling people what to do,” Miller said. “It's about being able to discuss with them how we can be better as a team, how we can support them because we're only as good as our weakest link. I love every single person. We have a great team and family dynamic.”
Editor’s note: An IDS editor is part of the women’s ice hockey team but was not involved in this piece.
