EDMONTON, Alberta - Maria Dennis '88, whose 96 goals make her the most prolific scorer in the history of Yale Hockey (men's and women's programs), has been skating in the Stanley Cup bubble at Rogers Place.
 
Being on the ice is not part of her job, but she loves any chance to lace up the skates.  
 
Dennis played the game competitively into graduate school and then spent the last 29 years working with pro teams, Olympic committees, and national governing body organizers while practicing law. Her current team is the National Hockey League Players' Association.
 
"I got the chance to play with some of the NHL Officials and have been on the ice for the past five or six days in a row," said Dennis, who has been working out of the NHLPA Suite during all the action at Rogers Place, including the Stanley Cup-deciding Tampa Bay-Dallas series.
 
Dennis, the NHLPA's Director of Player Health and Safety and Associate Counsel, welcomes the workouts to maintain sound mind and body, but her focus is on making sure the players are safe, which has also made the experience a safe one for the citizens of Edmonton.
 
"My initial concern was for the health and safety of the players, making sure the protocol was working smoothly. So far it has been a great success for everyone."
 
The former Bulldog who helped her teams win 34 games is also chair of the NHL/NHLPA Female Hockey Advisory Committee, where she is hoping to make sure young girls and women with "goals" in mind can experience all the opportunities and benefits the sport provides.
 
"The Committee's mission is to  recommend initiatives to the NHL and the NHLPA on how to grow the sport, which specifically includes extending opportunities for girls and women, growing our fan base, and making sure there is an appeal to diverse audiences."
 
One of those ideas includes elite women players becoming ambassadors with NHL clubs, like former U.S. Olympian Haley Skarupa with the Washington Capitals.
 
"We also created a toolkit to guide NHL clubs on how they could increase participation for girls and women in their markets. Maybe get them to try the sport, join a league, or become a member of a fan club. The handbook was distributed last season and it has been well received."
 
Dennis also pointed to a landmark NHL event that helped the cause. Kendall Coyne Schofield, a member of the U.S. Women's National Team, became the first woman to compete in the NHL Skills Competition in 2019 when she filled in for Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon in the fastest skater event. She didn't win, but she was very fast – outperforming three NHL competitors.
 
"That was a big breakthrough," said Dennis. "That one act showed that women have as high a skill set as men. It was the lap heard around the world."
 
The Yale history major made hockey history herself by making the first U.S. National Team for the initial IIHF Women's World Championships in 1990 (silver medal), while she was a second-year student at Georgetown Law School. Dennis was picked for the American Hockey Coaches Association All-Decade team, but was away from the game too long to make history again by playing in the first Olympic women's hockey competition in 1998. She was already working at a Los Angeles law firm and representing the San Jose Sharks as part of her transactional practice.
 
"I had a passion for the game since day one, and it made me strive to be the best I could be every time I stepped on the ice. There was a drive to win and excel. The joy of my life was skating fast, so I worked hard to get fast.
 
"I took advantage of [Yale Men's Coach] Tim Taylor's invitation to skate with his team in the pre-season and that helped me improve as player and a student of game. That drive never left me."
 
Taylor was not the only male at the Whale who was impressed.
 
"It was obvious that Maria had a very high skill level and was an exceptional skater, but the thing that really stood out was her passion for the game," said Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Men's Hockey, who was an assistant under Taylor when Dennis played. "She absolutely loved to play hockey and you could see that every time she stepped on the ice."
 
Dennis, who joined the NHLPA as Associate Counsel in 2011 and moved from Los Angeles to Toronto, became Director of Player Health & Safety in 2018.
 
She represents the Players' Association on various joint committees with the NHL, including the Health and Safety Committee, the Performance Enhancing Substances Program Committee, the Playing Environment Subcommittee, the Protective Equipment Subcommittee, and the Concussion Subcommittee, while also representing players' interests in the areas of supplementary discipline matters, data analytics and wearable technology, and the protection of private health information. 
  The NHL players are happy to know that the person looking out for them played the game at a high level and is still lacing up her skates for the love of the sport… no matter where a pickup game breaks out.