The 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Nov. 10. This year’s class includes Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Alexander Mogilny and Joe Thornton in the Player category and Jack Parker and Daniele Sauvageau in the Builder category. Here, NHL.com staff writer Derek Van Diest profiles Decker.
Brianna Decker never played a game she desperately didn’t want to win.
Even in practice, up against some of her closest friends, Decker’s competitiveness was legendary. Just ask Meghan Duggan, the retired captain of the United States Women’s National Team and her teammate with the U.S. and at the University of Wisconsin.
“She was one of the most competitive people I have ever met, probably unmatched,” Duggan said. “We would practice with the national team, and we were both so competitive, we would go at it, and we’d battle hard in the corner, and I’d give her a slash, and she would turn around and cross-check me in the face. There were times when we would drop the gloves, we were just so fired up in practice, we were so competitive. We were best friends, and we laughed about it in the locker room after.”
Decker’s competitive nature drove her to an Olympic gold medal, two silver and six IIHF Women’s World Championships for the United States, and eventually an induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The fire was lit at a young age growing up with three brothers, Bryan, Ben and Brody, in Dousman, Wisconsin. She took up hockey with them and grew up playing against them in the backyard and skating on the local pod where no quarter was given.
“If she came into the house crying, her mom would tell her she doesn’t get to play with the boys anymore,” said Gordie Stafford, Decker’s coach at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School. “Then it was like, ‘OK, I guess I better suck it up,’ and she brought that with her when she came to play with us.”
Decker immediately took to hockey when introduced to the sport, and it wasn’t long before she was considered one of the best female players in Wisconsin moving up through the various age groups.
“The unique thing was that my parents never played, so when my older brothers (Bryan and Ben) got involved, it was pretty new to our family,” Decker said. “My parents told me that once I first got out on the ice, I loved it, I enjoyed skating and enjoyed playing the game and competing.
“I started out playing with boys and I think I just felt at home, like I was playing with my three brothers at home. I just loved being able to compete with the boys and play with the boys.”
Decker’s first taste of success came by winning the Wisconsin state championship with the Madison Capitols Under-14 boys’ team. She then attended Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota, to play for Stafford, whose son Drew played 13 seasons in the NHL as a forward with the Buffalo Sabres, Winnipeg Jets, Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils.
It was the first time Decker played on an all-girls’ team. She helped Shattuck-St. Mary’s win under-19 national titles in 2005, 2006 and 2009 before playing at the University of Wisconsin.
Decker returned to Shattuck-St. Mary’s as an associate coach under Stafford in 2022. This season, the 34-year-old is going into her first year as an assistant with the Minnesota Frost of the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
“It’s very rare with female hockey players to have somebody that is such an offensive killer, such an offensive shark and that’s what she is,” Stafford said. “She’s certainly right up with the most competitive athletes that I’ve ever been around.
“She has a fiery personality, and she loves her teammates. I’ve been around the locker room a lot and there’s those players in the locker room that crack everybody up and keep everybody together and she was one of those. She just loved her team.”
