Emily Pfalzer Matheson: Great Jets, Great Heart

Emily Pfalzer Matheson is a standout defenseman for Team USA who has won an Olympic gold medal along with four World Championships and numerous other accolades. So when the Penguins hosted the American and Canadian women's national teams for a joint training camp in November 2019, she spent a week practicing and playing at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

After Emily's husband Mike got traded to Pittsburgh from Florida less than a year later, she was able to fill him in on some of what he could expect.
"Funnily enough, I got to see the facilities before Mike even did," Emily said. "We were both really excited. It's such an amazing organization, and I was so excited for him to be here."
An added bonus is that they are now just a few hours away from Emily's hometown of Getzville, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. It will be nice to have family nearby to help out come June, which is when the couple, both 27 - who met while playing college hockey at Boston College and got married in 2019 - are set to welcome their first child.
Emily announced the couple's news on Instagram with a photo of her holding a No. 8 Team USA "MOMMY" jersey, Mike holding a No. 5 Penguins "DADDY" jersey and a tiny pair of hockey skates nestled next to theirs.
"I had thought about doing (an announcement) like that for a long time," she said with a laugh. "I was like, we have to do that."
Their future son's skates are much different than the ones Emily wore the first time she took the ice at just two-and-a-half years old. Her parents Dave and Jill built a rink in their backyard, and her two older brothers, Matthew and Thomas, were out there all the time.
"The story goes that I was always crying at the back door wanting to play with them, so that's how I got started, in these little white Angel skates my mom wanted me to wear," she said with a smile. "I always just wanted to do what they did. And they were nice enough to let me play. I think half the time, the puck was at one end of the backyard and I was still trying to make it from the other end."
From there, Emily began playing organized hockey at the age of 4 on boys' teams for the Amherst Knights youth organization.
"I was the only girl playing on my team," she said. "And I really didn't see many other girls. Seeing another girl at a tournament only happened once in a while. It's awesome to see and hear about all the young girls that get to play with other girls in all these competitive leagues, and it's nice to see the sport grow in that sense."
Emily made the switch to playing on girls' teams with the Buffalo Bisons when she was in eighth grade. She continued to play for them while attending Nichols School, and also traveled two hours across the border to play for the Mississauga Junior Chiefs in the Provincial Women's Hockey League her last two years of high school.
During that time, Emily had gone to visit Thomas, who was a student at Boston College, on numerous occasions - and loved it. So when it was time for her to commit to a school, she felt BC was the perfect fit.
"Just going to visit him all the time and seeing how much he loved it there was a big factor," Emily said. "And on my visits, it was just a great atmosphere. I felt like it hit all the check marks: a great school, great academics and great hockey program. It was the best of everything."
Meanwhile, Mike had gone on visits to various schools in the Boston area. And when he arrived on campus at Boston College, Mike knew it was the one. That could also apply to the first time he met Emily, during a philosophy class they were both enrolled in.
"Mike didn't last too long in the class," Emily said with a grin.
"I struggled on the first big paper and I was told to drop the class," Mike admitted with a laugh.
But Mike and Emily made sure to stay in touch, getting to know each other better off the ice while going to each other's games. When Mike watched Emily play, he saw plenty of speed and skill in a small package, as she measures 5-foot-2 and 125 pounds.
And while she may have had trouble keeping up with her brothers as a kid, Emily went on to become the best offensive defenseman in Eagles team history. She became the school's first blueliner to reach 100 career points while also being named a top-10 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award her senior year, which is awarded to the best player in women's college hockey.
That was also when Emily appeared in her first game for the U.S. women's senior national team after playing for the Under-18 team in high school, and it's still difficult for her to put into words what it meant.
"It's just a surreal moment," she said. "You're like, this is really happening. It's hard to explain. We had a bunch of younger girls all make the team. It was a bunch of our friends together, and it was crazy."
It was the cumulation of a dream that Emily had ever since she was in middle school, when she watched Team USA play a game in Rochester, New York during their Olympic tour.
"Growing up, I feel like you see these NHL players on TV and that's who you look up to," said Emily, who always liked fellow Buffalo native Patrick Kane. "There wasn't much visibility then. But I remember the first time I saw the U.S. women's team play. My friend and I went, and that was when I thought, 'This is really cool. I want to be like them.' And ever since then, I always wanted to play in the Olympics."
Emily's first appearance in the Games had a magical, storybook ending, as she won gold with Team USA at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea after defeating Canada, 3-2, in a shootout.
"It was just an amazing experience," said Emily, who said she keeps her medal in a sock to prevent it from getting scratched. "You see your family in the stands and they're just as part of the journey as you are. Everything after that was just so much fun. To celebrate alongside your teammates that you've been working so hard with to accomplish this goal - it was incredible."
Emily played a big role in the tournament, slotting in on the second D pairing, first penalty kill unit and second power-play unit. In an article for the Democrat & Chronicle, her teammate Gigi Marvin praised Emily's play on both sides of the puck, saying she was a rock defensively while also jump-starting a lot of rushes.
"Emily Pfalzer: great jets, great heart," Marvin said.
Mike, who was playing for the Florida Panthers at that point, had been watching - first nervously, and then ecstatically - from their home in Fort Lauderdale.
"To see her achieve what she set out to do and have that success and have all her work pay off, it's such a great example for me to continue pursuing what I want to accomplish," he said. "We've been there for each other and I'm hoping my competitiveness is okay in that sense, that I kind of want to match her."
Despite representing rival countries in international play - Mike, a native of Pointe-Claire, Quebec, has appeared in two World Championships for Team Canada - they're still incredibly supportive of one another.
"We always root for each other," she said. "We don't chirp, we're competitive, but more like quietly competitive. Like okay, I'm beating you, but I'm not going to say anything until it happens (laughs)."
During the offseason, the couple works out at the same gym in Montreal, Adrenaline Performance Center (which is where Kris Letang also trains). During the season, Emily said that while people probably think they talk hockey all the time since they both play, it actually doesn't come up all that much.
"But definitely when either of us think we had a bad game, we'll lean on each other in that sense," she said. "We know what one another is going through."
Emily isn't just an inspiration to her husband. After the team returned home from the Games in 2018, Emily was delighted to realize that she was having the same impact as the Olympians she had watched years prior.
"I think that was such a meaningful part of winning gold, especially in the U.S.," Emily said. "Just seeing the growth of women's hockey here after we won was really special. So many parents came up to us and were like, you're inspiring our girls - my daughter wants to play hockey now because of watching your game. Those are all really special moments."
And Emily is doing what she can to give girls more and more opportunities within the sport. When she isn't competing for the U.S. women's national team, Emily is helping to grow the women's professional game.
She began her professional career by captaining her hometown Buffalo Beauts of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) in the league's inaugural season in 2015-16. The next year, Emily led them to the league championship - the Isobel Cup - while also participating in the NWHL All-Star Game. After taking the 2017-18 season off to compete for Team USA, she was named to the NWHL All-Star Team for a second time in 2018-19.
In 2019, Emily and her peers established the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA). Comprised of approximately 125 of the world's best hockey players, the PWHPA was formed to advocate for and advance equity, fairness and opportunity in women's professional hockey. Specifically, the group's goal is to create a sustainable league that pays a living wage to players, provides appropriate elite-level resources and invests in marketing that showcases the players and game.
"I think what was really important for us was to realize that we want more," Emily said. "More as in having ice time that's not at 10 o'clock at night and having tape provided. These little things that you don't think of, but we weren't being supplied."
Emily loved watching her teammates take part in the 2021 PWHPA Dream Gap Tour, where players in region-based teams compete against each other to showcase the women's game. It began when Madison Square Garden hosted its first-ever professional women's hockey game on Feb. 28, and continued this past weekend in Chicago with a showcase held at the United Center.
Saturday's game was broadcast live on NBC Sports and Sportsnet, while Sunday's was streamed by CBC Sports. That visibility is so important, and Emily hopes that more and more kids continue to have the same experience she did after watching Olympians play for the first time.
"I miss playing," Emily said. "I'm excited to see them play. We want little girls everywhere to hopefully live out their dream to be a professional hockey player one day. We're so proud to hopefully be the idols for young girls right now growing up and playing."
Special thanks to AT&T SportsNet rinkside reporter Dan Potash for his assistance with this feature.