The Philadelphia Liberties are in a league of their own when it comes to growing girls’ hockey

Cailin Williams was always interested in hockey. Like most middle-school athletes, she just wanted to make friends and compete. It didn’t matter that she could barely skate — Williams just wanted to play.

But there was one issue: There was no league for her to play in.

In 2021, Comcast Spectator and the Flyers Training Center changed that. Together, they launched The Philadelphia Liberties, a youth hockey program for girls.

The girls train and practice out of the Flyers Training Center and often have a front-row view of Flyers practice. This past month, Flyers forward Trevor Zegras dropped in after a Liberties game to take pictures and meet some of the girls.

» READ MORE: Liberties are developing girls’ hockey with a sense of community: ‘You just gain 20 sisters’

“I think it’s just something really cool to experience,” Williams, 16, said. “To be able to have this opportunity, knowing that I get to play when some people aren’t lucky enough to, and then I also get to share the same ice as professional players is really great.”

But it wasn’t necessarily a smooth start.

“We didn’t win one game [that first season],” said Flyers Training Center director of development Jeremy Hall. “Actually, I don’t know if we even scored a singular goal. But that first season was just something to get them started.”

Since then, the Liberties have only continued to expand. The organization started with just one team, but it now has three teams running across various age groups — 10U, 14U, and 19U — for a total of 53 girls in the program.

“We actually won a handful of games [the second season] and just really got some momentum going,” Hall said. “From that point forward, the growth in the last three to four years is honestly quite incredible to see where we’re at today, compared to where we were when we started. I’ve been in the rink here for 17 years, and I haven’t seen another program grow as fast and have had as much success as this one.”

But the program’s goal wasn’t just getting more girls involved in hockey — it was about visibility for girls’ hockey in general.

In 2023, the program hosted the first Philadelphia Liberties Invitational, which featured seven teams. Three years later, the tournament hosted 45 teams ranging from 8U to 19U. And the visibility that has come from this expansion is setting up the players for a childhood full of opportunities.

These opportunities aren’t just limited to on the ice, though. Through the Flyers and Comcast, the girls have done ceremonial puck drops at Flyers games, have been invited to the White House to skate at the rink, and some players even met Jessica Campbell, an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken and the first female coach in the NHL.

“Some of those opportunities come from [the Flyers’ Training Center] being our home,” Hall said. “That’s something that the girls definitely don’t downplay. They recognize that it’s a privilege.”

As the Liberties have expanded, girls’ hockey in general is on the same path.

“In the last two to three years, [girls’ hockey has] exponentially grown,” Flyers Training Center general manager Jay Freeman said. “Not only for us, but just in general, for the country.”

And that’s the goal of the Liberties: growth. In every possible way.

“I always tell my team that hockey is the most beautiful game in the world,” 19U coach Linda Rehmann said. “And any day you get to play it, you’re a lucky person. But the game is about more than what happens on the ice. Our organization is about growing good people, teaching life lessons that they’re going to take with them, adversity, teamwork, resilience, all kinds of things that I think when you’re in that intense, competitive sport environment, it just accelerates your learning process.”

Rehmann started her hockey journey in Canada when she was just 5 years old. She played with boys for the first seven years before making the transition to girls’ hockey.

Her journey led her to Cornell, where she won an Ivy League title as a sophomore and was cocaptain her senior year.

“Hockey played a huge role the first 22 years [of my life],” Rehmann said. “My whole life was basically centered around my hockey schedule, and I loved it. I really felt like it shaped who I became. I’m an engineer. Professionally, I feel very comfortable in rooms full of men, and I believe that competitive sport makes girls strong.”

Rehmann has been with the Liberties for the past three years, and that message of empowering girls and women has carried over to her athletes.

“Coach Linda, she’s been amazing,” Williams said. “I started out not really being able to skate very well, and now I can move, I’m doing good. I think a big part of it is having a really supportive group of coaches who are always there and want us to get better.”

Said Rehmann: “I’m getting a little bit teary just thinking about [how Liberties has changed these girls’ lives]. What we offer is a place where they can be themselves. They can be honest with each other; they can make mistakes.

“[They have social pressures in their lives], but at the rink, they can relax, they feel at home, they feel safe. I think that’s really what [this] is. [The Liberties] gives them a tremendous growth opportunity as an athlete. It shows that they’re willing to put [themselves] out there, try new things, and open [themselves] up to something else that [they] might otherwise not be willing to do.”