PLYMOUTH, Minn. - She came within an eye-lash of becoming the focal point of Team USA’s Gold Medal winning effort in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Tied 2-2 in overtime against Canada, Plymouth’s Kelly Pannek beat Canadian net-minder Shannon Szabados with a wrist-shot for an apparent “golden goal,” only to have the puck carom off the post.
“I wasn’t mad about it or anything,” Pannek reflects. “My friends were surprised to hear that, but it was just such low-stress in the overtime, you have to enjoy it, and we just knew that we were going to win.”
So while the rest of America was fending-off a collective heart-attack, Pannek was cool because she’d been there before. Not at the Olympics, of course (it was her first time at the games), but if you know anything about Kelly Pannek it would only have been surprising if she had come home with anything but gold.
Pannek won two state soccer championships at Benilde St. Margaret’s (where she was a six-time letter winner) and earned Minnesota’s Ms. Soccer Award in 2013. Despite being arguably the best soccer player in the state, Kelly chose to play hockey in college... a decision that wasn’t as hard as you might think.
“My fallback was always hockey, but then I had a mental-shift,” explains Pannek. “I was never doing anything to make myself better in soccer, while I always loved hockey practice. It didn’t matter what time or where, I just always wanted to work on things to make myself better.”
At the University of Minnesota Pannek’s impact was immediate. She made the All-WCHA Freshmen team while helping the Gophers win national titles both her freshmen and sophomore years. They made the NCAA's her junior year but lost to Clarkson in the semifinals.
Taking an “Olympic redshirt year” from the U in 2017, Pannek resumed her winning ways by helping team USA beat Canada at the World Championships, and followed it up by bringing home a Gold Medal at this year’s Olympic Games.
The one that got away? That would be a state high school hockey championship. After three years of frustration Pannek finally got Benilde St. Margaret's past nemesis Minnetonka and into the 2014 State Tournament title game against her mom’s alma-mater, Hill-Murray. Despite Kelly registering a hat-trick, the Red Knights lost 5-3 to the Pioneers.
“That’s the one that still bothers me.” says Pannek. “That’s always gonna bother me because we came so close.”
Becoming close may have been what helped put Team USA over the top in the Olympics. As a recent addition to the women’s national team Pannek willingly joined Team USA veterans who took a stand and threatened to boycott the 2017 World Championship unless they received increased financial support from USA Hockey, stipends that would put them on-par with that of the men’s team. The experience bonded the women, and left them determined to show their worth.
“Our leaders did a great job of working with the lawyers, keeping us informed and checking with us to make sure it was OK," she says. "I just said, ‘I’m gonna trust this, and support this and trust that they’ll do what’s right.”
Properly motivated by USA Hockey’s concession to level the ice, the U.S. Women’s National Team went out and won it’s fourth consecutive International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship (and seventh in eight years) with a 3-2 overtime victory over their arch rivals from Canada.
“We were so motivated to prove that we were worth it, people still didn’t know if we could do it, and we just wanted to show that we deserved to get the same support,” she recalls.
If it seems like winning seems to be associated with Kelly Pannek, success clearly hasn’t gone to her head. Kelly plans to return to the U of M this fall, where she is majoring in supply-chain management at the Carlson School of Business.
“I’ve always liked math and working with numbers; it’s something that my dad does. Plus, I like finding ways to save money. I don’t like to spend money.”
With mom Molly, dad Todd, big sisters Allie and Amy and younger brother, Billy in attendance in Pyeongchang, Kelly found herself on Team USA’s first (and most productive) line, centering twin sisters and veteran Team USA standouts Monique Lamoureiux-Morando and Jocelyne Lamoureiux-Davidson.
“They obviously read each other really well, so I was just trying to find out how I could join that, move the puck well and make plays. They’re both great goal scorers and they’re so competitive so it was definitely fun, kind of cool to have had that experience,” she explains. “But, if I would have stayed on 4th line and we still would have won,, I would have been OK with that, too.”
With the Olympics over and a Gold Medal to call her own, it’s back to college and her senior year with Brad Frost’s women’s hockey program. When you’re a women’s hockey player, even one as talented as Kelly Pannek (a returning All-American and finalist for the Patty Kazmeier Award, an honor given to the nation’s best female collegiate hockey player), there is no option to leave school early for the pros. But, if Kelly’s feeling sorry for herself, it sure doesn’t sound like it.
“I’m really excited about going back, it’s a great program, no question about it," Pannek reasons. "Playing with the Potomac sisters (who also took redshirt years in an unsuccessful bid for the Canadian National Team), it’s so fun, it’s a no-brainer.”
Before she returns to the ice Kelly will embark on a well-deserved vacation in April with her college friends, and there's that goal she’s set for herself this summer... something else that rubbed-off from the time spent with her Olympic teammates while training down in Florida.
“My golf game got a lot better, I was playing in the high 80’s. My goal this summer is to get consistently in the mid-80’s; my dad will take me.”