Harmon eager for 'amazing weekend' playing in Chicago women's games

Savannah Harmon said she will live her childhood dream when she plays her first game at United Center as part of the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association's 2021 Secret Dream Gap Tour.

The 25-year-old defenseman, who grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois, about 20 miles west of Chicago, will play for Team adidas against Team Women's Sports Foundation in the Chicago Blackhawks Showcase portion of the tour on Saturday (3 p.m. ET; NBCSN). The teams will also play at Fifth Third Arena, the Blackhawks' practice facility, on Sunday (11:30 a.m. CT; CBC GEM APP, CBCSPORTS.CA, CBCSPORTS APP).
"As soon as I heard about this opportunity, I've been looking forward to it ever since," Harmon said.
She said she fulfilled "a life goal" when she played on Hockey Hall of Fame forward Cammi Granato's team in last year's games at Fifth Third. Granato, also from Downers Grove, won a gold medal with the United States women's team at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and a silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. But for Harmon, playing in the home of the Blackhawks takes it to another level.
"I'm just so excited to come back to Chicago and thankful for the Blackhawks support," she said. "I just think it will be an amazing weekend, especially coming from New York City and the huge success we had there and how much fun it was. I'm now even more excited to be in my hometown and really just looking forward to it."
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The PWHPA was formed to try to push for a sustainable women's professional hockey league and to advocate for and advance equity, fairness and opportunity in women's hockey. Team adidas and Team Women's Sports Foundation played two games in New York last week, including one at Madison Square Garden, as part of the New York Rangers Showcase.
Harmon scored 113 points (30 goals, 83 points) in 160 games for Clarkson University from 2014-18. She was second in the nation in scoring among defensemen as a junior with 36 points (11 goals, 25 assists) in 41 games. As a senior, she led the nation's defensemen with a plus-54 rating and was a top-10 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, given annual to the top female college ice hockey player in the United States.
A co-captain as a junior and captain as a senior, Harmon helped lead Clarkson to back-to-back NCAA Division I women's ice hockey championships in 2017 and 2018.
She was selected to play for the U.S. in the 2020 IIHF women's world championship, but the tournament was canceled due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus.

Harmon is the latest successful women's hockey player from the Chicago area, following in the footsteps of Granato and Kendall Coyne Schofield, who grew up in Palos Heights, Illinois, 21 miles southwest of Chicago, and won gold with the women's team at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.
Harmon attended Granato's camp when she was 5 years old and considers her a great role model. Harmon is also friends and trains with Coyne Schofield; Harmon has helped out at Coyne Schofield's girls' hockey camps the past three summers.
"Her camp sells out within days and it's just amazing to see the growth in our area," Harmon said. "For her [camp] specifically, they fly in from all over the United States but the local girls she gets, it's just amazing to see it grow over the years, and that's just a prime example through Chicago.
"When I was younger, I would have never pictured a camp of 60 young girls. That just wasn't really there, so just to see the growth is amazing, and it's so exciting for the future."
Playing at United Center will be a treat for Harmon, but even more so that she's doing it for the PWHPA.
"I completely believe in our mission, completely believe in the woman and just this entire group as a whole," she said. "What we're striving for is definitely long overdue, but we're excited to be taking these steps forward and to help reach our end goal.
"It's just so much fun and obviously something bigger and just exciting to strive for, for the younger generation, to have role models to look up to and hopefully they have a livable wage and look forward to playing when they get to our age."