A League of their Own

Isthmus, January 3, 2019

After lacing up her skates, Sara Wolf exits the locker room of the McFarland Ice Arena with her hockey bag slung over one shoulder and her 1-year-old son, George, tucked into the crook of her arm. Out in the arena, Wolf hands George off to her parents and takes the ice to play defense for the Madison Meteorites against Milwaukee’s Brew City Blades.

Toting along a toddler to matches is nothing unusual for the Meteorites, a Division 1 team in the Women’s Central Hockey League. Sixteen of the team’s active players have a combined 27 children — with several under the age of 4.

Last season, Wolf resumed playing just four weeks after George was born. When he was 4 months old, she took him to the USA Hockey Women’s National Championship in Boston. “There were three members of the Meteorites who were nursing at Nationals,” Wolf says. “Our cardio before the games was breastfeeding.”

At 40, Wolf is tied with one other teammate as the oldest player on the Meteorites. Many players are in their 30s. “My teammate’s husband commented that we go to Nationals and our average age is 35 and we are playing teams whose average age is 23,” Wolf says. “And most of the teams practice and have coaches, but we’re uncoached, we don’t hold practices and we don’t have a sponsor.”