She Started on a Backyard Rink
Grace Outwater's journey to Penn State is a reminder that the biggest careers often begin in the smallest places
There is something about a backyard rink that never really leaves you.
For Grace Outwater, it started with her grandfather and a patch of ice that her family built at home. It started with watching her brother skate and deciding she wanted to try it too. It started with a little hesitation, and then a lot of fun, and then a group of friends that made her never want to leave the ice. By the time Grace realized she loved hockey, hockey already had her.
That’s the thing about the sport. It has a way of pulling you in through the side door, through a family member, through a backyard rink, through a group of kids just trying to have fun on a cold afternoon. And for a lot of the players I’ve had the privilege of talking to on this podcast, that’s exactly how it started.
Watch the full interview on YouTube.
What separates Grace’s story, though, is what happened after the fun part.
At some point in ninth grade, something shifted. She watched her older teammates get recruited by universities and national teams, and something clicked. She went home and had a conversation with her parents about eating better, training harder, and taking the sport seriously in a way she hadn’t before. That conversation changed the trajectory of everything that followed.
It takes a certain kind of self-awareness to recognize that moment when it’s happening, especially at that age. Most kids don’t. Grace did, and she acted on it, and now she’s one of the most promising forwards at Penn State studying kinesiology, balancing one of the most demanding athletic schedules in college hockey, and doing it with a maturity that comes through clearly in conversation.
Along the way, she had people in her corner who made the difference. Her first coach, Glenn Gillies, kept the joy in the game during the hard stretches. Coaches like Dana Overhill and Hannah through the Lady Sens program pushed her competitively while making sure she believed in herself. Grace talks about those relationships the way many great athletes do, not as people who just taught her hockey, but as people who saw something in her and refused to let her forget it.
She carried that forward into her own leadership. As an assistant captain with the Ottawa Lady Sens, Grace learned that leading wasn’t about being the loudest voice in the room. It was about showing up the right way every single day and trusting that the people around you would notice. That lesson has followed her to Penn State.
One of the highlights she shared from her time there so far was playing in an outdoor game at Beaver Stadium. Over 100 years of college football history, and there was Grace Outwater skating on that ice in front of the biggest crowd her team had ever played in front of. She described it as one of the coolest experiences of her career, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine it being anything else.
But what excites Grace most right now isn’t any single game or moment. It’s the direction the sport is heading. The growth of the PWHL, the increasing visibility of the women’s game, and the sense that the opportunities available to young players today are genuinely different from what existed even five years ago. Grace sees all of it, and she’s excited, and after talking with her, so am I.
It all started on a backyard rink her grandfather built. And now here she is.
Check out the full conversation with Grace Outwater on Episode 113 of Rinkside Rundown, available on YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.