Ashley Hoffman is a bit of an odd one out in the USA women’s hockey team filled with part-time players and college students that have booked their 2024 Paris Olympics tickets here. Not only has the American co-captain played professional club hockey in the Netherlands, field hockey also runs in her family back home in the US where the ice version of the sport is more popular.
Her mother, Brenda Hoffman, was part of the women’s hockey team that won bronze at the home 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, which remains USA’s only Olympic medal in women’s hockey. Forty years on, her daughter will follow her path and turn up to an Olympics. Having made her senior international debut in 2017, Ashley missed out on the Tokyo Games after USA lost a dramatic two-legged qualifying tie to India in India in 2019.
“It’s a dream to follow her (Brenda’s) footsteps,” Ashley, 27, told HT in a chat after scoring USA’s opening goal in their semi-final win over Japan at the FIH Women’s Hockey Olympic Qualifiers that sealed their Paris spot.
“I’ve had a hockey stick in my hand for a long time. But she never once pressured me into the sport, and that’s something I’m really grateful for.”
Brenda went from playing hockey to coaching junior players in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, before Ashley was even born. The prod to get into the sport never came from her mother, but a young Ashley picked it up anyway growing up in a hockey environment and hearing about her mother’s Olympic tales. Brenda began coaching her daughter in second grade, and continued to do so even when Ashley switched to another high school.
Dinner table conversation centred around hockey was common in the Hoffman household. “There’s definitely a lot of hockey chat between us. It’s great fun. She will always give me her two cents after the game. And I appreciate that,” Ashley said.
Ashley was a regular in the University of North Carolina’s hockey roster, and earned her first junior USA call-up in 2012 before her senior debut five years later. All along, she never once felt the pressure of walking into and living up to her mother’s celebrated path in the sport.
“I didn’t feel too much pressure from my parents, especially my mom. Because I love the game, and it is such a fast-paced and dynamic sport that I just enjoy playing hockey. So, there was and is never any pressure to achieve anything. I just want to see what I can do, and she (Brenda) supports me fully in that,” said Ashley.
Part-time, college-going players
Ashley played club hockey in Europe (for Dutch club hdm) for three years before joining USA’s centralised national program under head coach David Passmore. The rest of the team comprises part-time players and girls from different universities who paused their school and took the semester off to get their and USA’s hockey back on the Olympics track. They did so defying expectations and rankings in Ranchi, topping Pool B — it included higher-ranked India and New Zealand — while winning all their three matches without conceding a goal.
“Some players are now a little bit behind in their school work,” Ashley said, smiling. “But we all had a dream since we were little, and that is to play at the Olympics. We are so excited to be a part of this group.”
That group comprised just nine players (six outfield and three goalkeepers) around 15 months ago when Passmore took over the job. By May last year, he put together a bunch of 24 and got a coaching staff that includes assistant coach Javier Telechea, an Argentine with a “soccer background”, as Passmore puts it, who works on their tactical and defensive structures.
“It’s quite a small player base in the US and an odd structure. About 80% of the players come from just one pocket: Pennsylvania,” Passmore said. “The drive for hockey players there is only scholarship in universities. But that doesn’t prepare them for international hockey.”
Almost every player in the current squad also works part-time. “We usually train in the mornings, and then they all go to their jobs in the afternoons,” the coach said.
‘Shoot for the stars in Paris’
USA had a below-par fourth-place finish at last year’s Pan Am Games, but it would only act as a springboard to their rousing run in Ranchi that has confirmed their destination Olympics after eight long years.
“It’s means so much to us, especially those who were in India five years ago and didn’t qualify,” Ashley said. “We have LA (Olympics) in 2028 (for which they will automatically qualify as hosts), but it feels so good to have earned a spot in the Olympics. We can now for the rest of our lives say that.”
The Americans will stay back in India and take a break in Goa before heading off to Bhubaneswar for their Pro League matches next month. The absence of a professional league in the US means it will be imperative for the team to keep playing international matches leading up to the Olympics, reckons Ashley, where she is eager to leave a mark.
“From where we came a year ago, I recognise that medalling in Paris would be completely off the table,” Ashley said. “But now, we’re going to shoot for the stars.”