Power on the Ice – Against All Odds

Lucia Schmitz comes from an ice-hockey family: her great-grandfather was a team official with DEG Düsseldorf, her grandfather a coach, and her father a professional player. Even so, her own path to the ice was not a given. While her father took Lucia, her older sister, and her younger brother skating from an early age, ballet and vaulting were considered more “appropriate — and less brutal” for the girls, she recalls with a smile. When her little brother received ice-hockey gear for Christmas, however, the sisters staged a small revolt and convinced their parents to let them try it too. Lucia was eight at the time.

Even with parental support, pursuing her passion was not easy. “We lived in Gifhorn back then,” Schmitz says, “and unfortunately there was no ice rink there.” So she joined a skating school in nearby Wolfsburg and went on to play in a boys’ team — simply because there was no women’s team, let alone one for girls. “That’s still often the case in Germany,” she explains. “Girls are usually only allowed to join women’s teams at 14 or 15. Before that, most of them play with the boys.”

In 2013 the family moved to Viernheim, and Schmitz made the leap to the women’s team of the Mad Dogs Mannheim. That very season, the Mad Dogs won the championship and were promoted to Germany’s first women’s league, where the club is now playing its thirteenth season. Two of her teammates, Lola Liang and Lea Welcke, also study psychology at the University of Mannheim — and, like Schmitz, receive support through the Elite Sports Scholarship Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region, a program designed to help top athletes pursue an academic degree alongside elite competition.

Balancing athletics and academics

Schmitz’s workload is formidable: six team practices a week, usually playing games on both Saturday and Sunday, and on top of that, work on her master’s thesis. Since 2023 she has also been part of Germany’s national team. During the summer, she prepares intensively for the upcoming season, focusing on strength training, endurance work, and explosive sprint drills.

She credits much of her academic success to the Elite Sports Scholarship. Schmitz has been studying at the University of Mannheim since 2019, first completing her bachelor’s degree before entering her current master’s program in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. What made her choose Mannheim? “The beautiful palace,” she says with a laugh — but also the ice-hockey environment, the university’s reputation, and the scholarship. The difference it makes becomes clear when she compares her situation with that of national-team teammates who lack similar support. “The help I get with coordinating practices, games, and my university schedule is fantastic. And the tutoring the scholarship arranged for me in my first semester really took away my fear of the statistics exam — getting a good grade there gave me a huge boost of confidence. Since then, my studies have gone smoothly despite the double workload.”

She is less satisfied, however, with the general lack of support for women’s ice hockey in Germany: bad ice time, limited access to the men’s weight rooms, and a top league where usually only foreign players are paid. Schmitz herself receives a salary as a sports soldier with the German armed forces, but many of her teammates still have to work full-time “on the side.” Add to that the dismissive comments from people who believe women do not belong on the ice. “Everyone who plays in the first league has experienced that,” she says. “You have to fight through it and keep going, despite the stupid remarks that really mean nothing.” Schmitz has done just that — including at the highest level: with the national team she competed at the last two world championships in České Budějovice, Czech Republic, and in Utica, USA.

Power and poise

So — is ice hockey brutal? “It’s a physical sport that requires power and poise,” Schmitz says. “But it’s certainly not so brutal that women shouldn’t play it.” In 18 years on the ice, she has never suffered a serious injury. Bruises come with the territory, but to her they are just minor annoyances. “You throw yourself in front of shots to block goals, or you might get hit by a stick along the boards,” she explains calmly. “But it’s not that different from field hockey — and there the players wear far less protective gear.”

What she loves most about ice hockey is the speed, the sheer intensity, and the sense of team spirit. And what makes a great ice-hockey player? “Game vision and hockey IQ — being able to anticipate what your opponent will do next — and stability, so you don’t get knocked over in a challenge,” she says, eyes lighting up. In other words, a sport perfectly suited for women. Not least for that reason, the Mad Dogs also run a girls’ team, the Girlies — a place where the next generation of players can take to the ice.

Text: Dr. Maartje Koschorreck / April 2026