Just skating by
Like most recent arrivals to the Big Apple, Amanda Kessel is enjoying everything this great city has to offer.
Since the Wisconsin native and newest star of the New York Riveters women’s pro hockey team moved into her temporary Midtown East digs a month ago, she has gone shopping in Soho, taken in a US Open match, and enjoyed delicious dinners at Da Silvano and Antica Pesa.
The 25-year-old foward has also felt the frustration that Gotham dishes out with impunity.
“The other day I was driving from the city to practice [in Newark, NJ],” says Kessel. “And 15 miles turned into 2 ½ hours. The light would change four times and we still hadn’t moved. It was insane.”
As if the commute weren’t bad enough, the cost of city living also hurts — especially given that Kessel, the top earner in the National Women’s Hockey League, makes only $26,000.
Meanwhile, the NHL’s Henrik Lundqvist, goalie for the New York Rangers, earns $8.5 million a year.
Kessel cuts corners by limiting herself to a $25 monthly gym membership and will soon move into a Jersey City, NJ, apartment with teammates Rebecca Russo and Courtney Burke. She feels fortunate to supplement her NWHL paycheck with money from playing in tournaments and coaching hockey skills at kids’ summer camps. As a member of the 2014 Olympic team that won silver in Sochi, Kessel also receives a stipend from Team USA.
Many of her Riveters teammates are looking for part-time work.
“One is teaching in a school. There are probably about three or four who are coaching. Some are looking to nanny,” Kessel says.
Just two years into its existence, the NWHL has four teams (New York, Boston, Buffalo and Connecticut). The Riveters play at Newark’s Prudential Center, also home to the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.
At this point, Kessel — who, in 2013, won the Patty Kazmaier Award, which is given to the top female college hockey player in the US, while at the University of Minnesota — is grateful to be on the ice at all. She stopped playing for two years while she recovered from the devastating side effects of a concussion suffered during a game.
“I didn’t think I’d play hockey again,” Kessel says, “so to be able to continue, it’s almost surreal.”
The trouble began a few months before the Sochi Olympics, when she was tripped up by a teammate and sent flying head-first into the boards. Kessel took about six weeks, then went on to score three goals — helping Team USA win the silver. But things soon took a dark turn, when she began to experience dizziness, headaches and malaise.
“I said, ‘Something’s not right here,’ ” she remembers. “I couldn’t go into stores and talk to people. I didn’t want to look at people because I felt so off.”
A depressed Kessel crisscrossed the country to see doctors and tried everything from inflammatory-reducing paleo diets to embracing life as a couch potato. She found help from Dr. Michael Collins at the University of Pittsburgh.
“He said, ‘You’re going to play hockey again,’ and I was almost pissed at first — like, ‘What do you mean? I feel like crap.’ Even a 10-minute walk felt bad.” But Collins convinced her to start working out and helped ease her back onto the ice. She returned to her college team and played the last few games of their 2016 schedule, symptom-free. “I needed the push,” she says. “I thought I was doing everything possible to get better, so someone telling me something different was what I needed.” Resiliency and on-ice prowess run in the Kessel family. Her eldest brother, Phil, just won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Middle sibling Blake was drafted by the New York Islanders in 2007 and now plays for the East Coast Hockey League’s Atlanta team. “We all come home for the summer and work out and skate together,” says Kessel. “We’re super competitive and have bad tempers.” Her competitive spirit will no doubt show itself at the Riveters’ away-season opener on Saturday against Boston Pride. And she’s already plotting her Olympic return for 2018. “[Since I was] a kid, that was my biggest dream: To win a gold medal.”