A month ago in Milan, Italy, the eyes of the hockey world watched the latest chapter in one of sports’ fiercest rivalries. USA women versus Canada, gold on the line, again. Tension thick enough to cut with a skate blade. For most, the story was about the teams on the ice.
For Kelly Cooke, the story was where she stood: five feet behind the net, whistle ready, heart pounding, as the golden goal slid past Canada’s goalie and into the pages of history.
Cooke, 35, doesn’t attract the spotlight in the way the players do. She blends into the background of the action, just another black-and-white striped figure moving with the play. But on this night, when Meghan Keller’s overtime shot clinched a 2-1 victory for Team USA, it was Cooke’s pointing to the puck in the net: “Goal!”
“The moment still hasn’t really hit me,” she said back home in Massachusetts, at her day job as a corporate lawyer. “As a women’s hockey fan, it’s so exciting to see the game grow. And to be there, seeing that goal up close … to call such an important game … it was exciting.”
It’s a journey two-plus decades in the making, one that started at Phillips Andover’s chilly, old rink, when Cooke was a 3-year-old in “Learn to Skate” classes, wobbling through her first laps under the watchful eyes of her mom and dad, Jenifer and George.
The rink was a relic, part indoor, part outdoor, and thoroughly unglamorous. But that didn’t matter. The thrill was in the speed, the sense of freedom.
“She was always fast,” Jenifer remembers. “If you think about most sports kids play, like T-ball or soccer, they’re boring at an early age. Hockey moves. The speed and freedom—Kelly was always a great skater.”
If you grew up in the late 1990s, women’s hockey was finally having its moment. The 1998 Nagano Olympics were the first to feature women’s hockey, and the USA’s upset of Canada for gold sent shock waves through the sport. Kelly was 7. Like tens of thousands of girls across the country, she was transfixed.
Cooke even saw the national team play an exhibition in Gloucester before the Olympics—a memory she still holds close.
“That was special for me, to be that close to seeing that team,” she says. “And then to follow them at the Olympics and see them win the gold medal. For my generation of young girls it showed us, as a young girl, that sky’s the limit. My dream was to play in the Olympics.”
When the USA beat Canada in that first Olympics, Cooke made sure they were first in line at the local grocery store to get the Wheaties box, adorned with the entire team.
“I still have that,” Cooke said proudly.
Only Cooke’s hockey path was relentless. She played with boys in Andover Youth Hockey through bantams, braving the rough-and-tumble world of co-ed leagues, before moving to powerhouse girls’ teams like Assabet Valley. There were setbacks—blowout losses, tough practices, the grind of year-round hockey—but she thrived.
“I remembered losing a game by nine goals in town hockey,” she laughs. “I told my parents I wanted to play more competitively.”
By eighth grade, Cooke was ready to leave home for Groton School, a move her parents resisted at first. But the drive to compete was too strong. She’d later transfer to Nobles, and from there, Princeton. For three years, she was a third-line forward—steady, reliable, putting up 11 goals and 11 assists over that span. As a senior, the All-Ivy academic team member’s game blossomed: 15 goals, 12 assists.
Professional hockey beckoned, and Cooke played in both the CWHL and NWHL while juggling law school at Northeastern. But even as her playing career peaked, the 5-foot-1 Cooke realized there were limits.
“There was another level or two ahead of me,” she admits.
The Olympic dream faded, but something else was taking shape—a different way to stay in the game she loved.
She’d already started refereeing at 12, doing youth games in Andover, following her elder brother, Evan and uncle, former Andover resident Alan McLean now living in Colorado, into wearing the striped jersey.
It was a great weekend job and as she moved through high school and college, she kept at it.
“I loved it. But I was told by the bosses in the reffing world that ‘You won’t move up until you stop playing.’”
When she finally hung up her skates as a player, the path opened. She became a full-time official in Hockey East, and before long, the International Ice Hockey Federation noticed.
In the last eight years, Cooke’s officiating résumé has become a checklist of the sport’s biggest stages: the gold-medal game at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, seven straight World Championships, seven Frozen Fours—including three NCAA title games.
“The Beijing Games were different because of COVID protocol. We were confined to our hotel and our families weren’t able to attend,” she recalls. “That gold-medal game (Canada beat USA, 3-2) was incredible, too. When those two meet, it’s always special.”
Milan was different as it allowed for her family, including parents George and Jenifer, brother and husband to attend.
“Seeing your child achieve this, in person and not on TV, is awesome,” her mother said. “I watch her most of the time. I’m a mom. I get nervous. I want her to make the right call so people aren’t going to be yelling at her, especially in a high-stakes game. She was great. It was an incredible experience.”
But for all the international travel, midnight flights, and pressure-packed moments, hockey’s real gift to Cooke was personal. Six years ago, working a Merrimack College women’s game, she met Greg Twogood, now her husband and a men’s hockey official. “This sport has given a lot to me and I love everything about it,” she says.
Cooke’s journey has come full circle. One of her childhood idols was Katie King Crowley, a star on that 1998 Olympic team and now Boston College’s women’s coach. They cross paths at rinks all the time.
“Kelly Cooke is one of the best referees in the world,” Crowley said. “It’s great to see her, a former college hockey player, use her experience and excel at the international level. She not only cares about the game, but the people in it. And now she’s inspiring young girls, too, on her incredible journey.”
There’s a certain symmetry to it. The little girl who watched history being made is now part of making it.
In Milan, as the gold-medal game stretched into overtime and the world watched, Kelly Cooke stood five feet from the moment, ready to call the play that crowned a champion. She’d dreamed of Olympic gold as a player.
As a referee, she’s found a different kind of Olympic glory—one that’s quieter, but no less meaningful.
You can email Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com.