Fan Favorite Jillian Dempsey Receives Invite to Boston Fleet Preseason Camp

By Cary Shuman

Winthrop resident Jillian Dempsey has been invited to the PWHL Boston Fleet’s preseason camp for the 2024-25 season.

Dempsey, who played for the Montreal team in the PWHL last season, will report to training camp next month. During her season in Montreal, the team set international attendance records for women’s ice hockey, drawing 21,105 fans to a Toronto-Montreal game at the Bell Centre.

Dempsey was a fan favorite during her spectacular career with the former Boston Pride team, serving as captain and becoming the league’s all-time leading scorer and a recipient of the Most Valuable Player award.

During Montreal’s first game against Boston at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, hundreds of fans wore Dempsey’s No. 14 Pride jersey while others displayed posters welcoming her back to the area. Among the Dempsey rooters were her students and professional colleagues at the Cummings School where she was a fifth-grade teacher.

Dempsey is a hockey legend in Massachusetts. A graduate of the Rivers School, Dempsey was selected to the Boston Globe all-time girls hockey team. At Harvard College, Dempsey was a Crimson hockey captain and a finalist for the esteemed Patty Kazmaier Award which is presented to the most outstanding college player in the nation.

During her pro career in Boston, Dempsey emerged as one of the region’s most popular athletes. She received the Hockey Legacy Award at The Tradition in 2022 and was a grand marshal of the 126th Boston Marathon.

Known for her magnetic personality and for being an eloquent spokesperson for the sport, Dempsey appeared in a TV commercial for the Women of NESN (WON) campaign that promoted women’s athletics. The Boston Fleet would seem to be a perfect fit for Jillian Dempsey, whose legion of loyal fans would help pack the Tsongas Center (and the TD Garden, perhaps) and continue the explosion of women’s professional sports in the United States.