Hockey Hall Of Fame: Wendell-Pohl

Krissy Wendell-Pohl was focused on the NHL Draft in June. She was in Las Vegas for the Draft meetings with the Pittsburgh Penguins in her role as an amateur scout.

So, she was not expecting a call with the news that she’d been selected for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“Initially, just shocked,” Wendell-Pohl said. “You don’t ever expect that phone call.

“Once it settled in, it was just really cool. Then to hear the news that… Natalie Darwitz was also going in. It made it that much better.”

Wendell-Pohl, along with her friend and teammate Darwitz, will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Nov. 11. The Hall of Fame induction weekend is Nov. 8-11.

Wendell-Pohl, 43, built a hall-of-fame career with eye-popping stats and awards as a high-scoring forward. But it’s not like she was a one-sport athlete as a kid. Whatever sport or game her older brother was playing, Wendell-Pohl wasn’t too far behind him.

“It’s funny, I don’t know what it was about hockey,” Wendell-Pohl said. “I literally grew up playing every sport possible from baseball to tennis to made-up games of hot box in the backyard.”

Her other claim to fame as a youth athlete came on the baseball diamond, becoming the fifth girl to play in the Little League World Series.  

But whatever it was about hockey, it was a sport Wendell-Pohl said she loved right away. She loved being at the rink. Loved skating on outdoor rinks. Loved any chance she could get to put on her gear and skate in a game. The competitiveness, the pace, the skating. She was drawn to it all from a young age.

That passion for the sport carried her through, especially because there initially weren’t many opportunities to look forward to for a future in women’s hockey. Playing in college or the Olympics “wasn’t even really an option.”

“So, for me, it really was just the love of the game and being able to play the sport,” Wendell-Pohl said.

Good timing
Turns out, timing was on her side. She may have been one of the most notable girls’ hockey players in Minnesota, who grew up playing with the boys, but doors started to crack open. It started with the addition of women’s hockey to the Olympics in 1998. That led to more opportunities with women’s college programs popping up.

Wendell-Pohl hadn’t even played on a girls’ hockey team – she was still playing bantams with the boys – before she went to the 1998 Olympic team tryout. But then she came back home and played another year with the boys before two years of girls’ high school hockey with Park Center, leading the team to a state championship in 2000. She also trained and played in the world championships and was part of the U.S. Women’s National Team program from 1998-2007.

She’s a two-time Olympian (2002 and 2006) and competed in six IIHF Women’s World Championships, including in 2005 when she helped the United States win its first-ever gold medal in the event. She led the tournament with nine points that year.

She forged a similar path to Darwitz – playing for the national team before playing college hockey. It’s a path that Darwitz noted is a bit in reverse.

“I feel like I got really, really fortunate with the timing,” Wendell-Pohl said. “There were so many people ahead of me that paved the way and was kind of just the beneficiary behind it just being able to enjoy playing and live in the moment.”

Wendell-Pohl moved to Lake Placid to train with the national team after she graduated from Park Center. With her training, she took nearly a two-year gap between schooling. She started college back home with the University of Minnesota Gophers at age 21.

Her journey left Wendell-Pohl with a new appreciation for coming home and being near her friends and family again.

“For me, it was interesting and unique, for sure, to go play in the Olympics and then almost come back and play college,” Wendell-Pohl said. “I certainly enjoyed and looked forward to coming home, and I absolutely loved my time playing college hockey here.”

She scored 106 goals and 237 points in 101 career games across three seasons (2002-05) with the Gophers. Skating with Darwitz, they helped lead the Gophers to back-to-back NCAA championships in 2004 and 2005. Wendell-Pohl was a Patty Kazmaier Award winner and two-time WCHA Player of the Year.

Similar paths for the Krissy-Natalie duo
Because Wendell-Pohl didn’t start college immediately following high school, it worked out well enough that she and Darwitz, already teammates for Team USA, played on a line together with the Gophers, along with Kelly Stephens. Darwitz is two years younger in age.

It’s fitting that this duo will be inducted in the same Hockey Hall of Fame class; they’re both already members of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. Even though they didn’t play together in their youth, and only faced each other once in high school. They played together for their country and their hometown college.

“I think people obviously look at the stats and say, ‘ok, they’re teammates,’” Darwitz said. “I think it goes way beyond that. Krissy and I, we basically saw each other grow up. We left home at an early age.

“We have a similar track record of playing with the boys and then going into the Olympics, and then doing college after that. … It’s just a really cool story.”

Wendell-Pohl agreed that seeing each other grow up was a good way to describe her and Darwitz.

“I do think that people probably pair us together,” Wendell-Pohl said. “I’ll happily take that pairing. If you’re going to pair me with Natalie, I’m happy to tag along with that, because she’s certainly a leader and a driver for women’s hockey.”

Memories surrounded by family
Looking back on her playing career, Wendell-Pohl has plenty of memorable moments from the various stages of her career. She credits a lot of her later opportunities to the positive experiences she had in her youth hockey days playing with boys, where a community was willing to embrace having a girl on the team.

“I just feel so fortunate that… for me, I got to live out a lot of my dreams,” Wendell-Pohl said. “I got to play in the Olympics, I got to go play and win national championships with some of my best friends that I grew up with here in Minnesota.

“Sometimes I almost have to pinch myself. You have no idea when you’re living in the moment until you look back that you realize how lucky and fortunate you really were.”

Wendell-Pohl will celebrate the Hall of Fame weekend with her family, including her parents, brother and sister. Her husband, Johnny Pohl, and their three daughters will also attend. It’s a chance to spend time all together, taking a break from busy lives.

Krissy and Johnny are longtime hockey coaches and just started their second season behind the bench of Hill-Murray’s girls’ team, now coaching their two older daughters on the varsity squad: Emily (sophomore) and Anna (eighth grade).

“To see where the game is now and have my own daughters grow up and have those kind of experiences and memories, to be able to play on all-girls teams and play in the summer and be able to go to different camps is really cool,” Wendell-Pohl said. “It’s a sport that unifies a lot of people. It’s a small world. But it certainly brings a lot of people together.

“I just feel really fortunate that I was able to have the journey I did.”