We love our job. We love the competition, teamwork and the action. We love working together, which as twin sisters has been the way we have lived our lives since before we were born. It’s hard work, but the rewards make it worth it.
We’re women ice hockey players – and our job is to wear the red, white, and blue and represent our country in world championships and in the Olympics.
In 2018, when we were competing in our third Olympics in Pyeong Chang, South Korea, we reached the pinnacle of our competitive careers. We were part of the gold medal winning U.S. women’s ice hockey team.
Winning a gold medal at the Olympics was something we had dreamed about since we were kids. It was exhilarating. The joy we felt – the sense of fulfillment – is almost indescribable. It just reinforced our love for our job.
Less than a year after Pyeong Chang, we both gave birth to adorable little boys. And they have changed our lives. Every day, they are growing – and developing. Our hearts are so full of love and pride that we are sometimes afraid that they might burst.
Yes, winning an Olympic gold medal was a dream come true – the most exciting moment in our professional lives. But giving birth is a great perspective setter. We will always love playing hockey, but being mothers is the most important job we will ever have.
The juxtaposition of winning gold with giving birth has led us to ask a set of questions that working women are asking themselves every day: Do we have to choose between our careers and being a mother? Can we be great mothers and still pursue our careers at the highest level? Why can’t we do both? And like so many other women who have successful careers and now are mothers, we’ve decided we in fact want to have it all.
A spotlight has been shined on these questions in recent weeks by the startling revelation that Nike had the right in its sponsorship agreements with women athletes to not pay them when they were not competing because of pregnancy or childbirth. We – and women athletes around the world(and working women in general) – all had the same reaction: what were they thinking?
But this piece isn’t about Nike, which happens to be one of the strongest supporters of women athletes in the U.S., or even about sponsorship support for pregnant women athletes. Nike has since reversed its policy on paying pregnant women athletes. And apparel brands like Burton, Altra, Nuun and Brooks all have announced their willingness to provide contractual guarantees for their sponsored athletes protecting them if they become pregnant. For us, we’ve been fortunate that our primary sponsorship arrangement is with Comcast NBCUniversal, which fully supported us financially – and even accommodated our special needs – during our pregnancies.
The issues raised by the Nike story go beyond corporate sponsorship of athletes. For the two of us, and for millions of other working women, that story crystallized the importance of maternity benefits – for all working women, including athletes. And for that, we can all recognize and acknowledge the courage of Olympic track athletes Alysia Montaño, Kara Goucher, and Allyson Felix for exposing this inequity in the sports world and provoking a broader conversation on the issue of support for working women.
Personally, we lived this issue during our 2017 negotiations with USA Hockey in which we were fighting for more equitable treatment in pay and benefits, in marketing and promotional support, and in financial support for girls youth hockey. Those negotiations concluded with an historic agreement. And that agreement included the first-ever comprehensive set of maternity benefits in the history of our sport.
We are the first two women ice hockey players to benefit from those maternity benefits. Even though we could not compete while we were pregnant and for a reasonable period of time after giving birth, we remained as members of Team USA – we are assured financial support and an opportunity to try out for the next national team event.
Today, we are working hard at being new moms – and we are training incredibly hard to get ourselves back in elite ice hockey shape. Although no one pressured us, we started in the gym two weeks after giving birth. We were back on the ice a month after that and are now training six days a week. And we’re also full-time moms. We will be returning to our first post-pregnancy USA Hockey camp in August. Our baby boys will be coming with us – attending their first USA Hockey camp ever.
While simultaneously pursuing our careers and being mothers is really hard, we are fortunate that we have not been forced to make a choice. Our USA Hockey maternity benefits are helping us to have it all.









