Team USA women’s hockey is heading into the 2026 Winter Olympics hoping for more than the silver medal finish from Beijing in 2022.
While they have dreams of gold, they are also inspiring the next generation of potential Olympians, some of whom are being coached in North Texas.
One of them is Angel Zerby, who has already caught the attention of USA Hockey.
“I want to be at the highest level that I can be,” Zerby said. “It’s hard to lose. Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to win when you have to be mentally tough in every scenario.”
Tough lessons learned at just 16-years-old, but she says they are lessons that are worth it. That mental toughness and her love of hockey started when her dad took her to her first Dallas Stars game.
“I decided that I thought that it looked cool, and I wanted to try that. So ever since then, he put me in skates,” Zerby said.
She learned to skate when she was just 8 years old. She was playing hockey by the age of 9 years old and then leveled up to the traveling Dallas Stars Elite when she was 10. She quickly realized that this was a lot different from the sports that her other friends were playing.
“So there’s not really enough girl competition here to have [a big league]. I think there are only three girls’ teams in Texas. There’s only one Tier One, which would be Dallas Stars Elite. So there’s not really enough for us to play other girls’ teams in Texas regularly,” Zerby said.
Her team has seen a lot of success. They have won regionals and been to nationals. Zerby herself has plenty of personal accomplishments to celebrate already.
“I was selected in 2024 for the USA player development camp. So that means I was invited by USA Hockey. That was a big deal for me. I was just super excited to go and do that,” Zerby said.
She was just one of four defensewomen in her region of several states to be invited. Her hard work was all in hopes of following in the skates of North Texas women who came before her from the Dallas Stars Elite Program.
Coppell’s own Hannah Bilka, who plays in the Professional Women’s Hockey League for Seattle, was on the USA Women’s National Team when they won the World Championship in 2024. Bilka has been named to Team USA’s roster for the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina.
Allyson Simpson from Frisco plays professional women’s hockey for the New York Sirens and was also a member of the Dallas Stars Elite in her early career.
It’s a spotlight Angel says she has trained most of her life for.
“We can go at this and be scared, or we can go at this as a challenge and see what we can do,” Zerby said.
While girls like Angel are still playing with the guys… the sport is growing. According to Dallas Stars Hockey programs, the girls’ side saw an 18-percent increase year over year. Since 2013, the Dallas Stars Elite has helped more than 90 North Texas girls earn scholarships for higher education.
