About Maria
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- About Maria
Who is Maria Rooth?
After 265 international games, she hung up her skates after the 2009/2010 season. Today she works as an inspirational speaker, runs a summer hockey school for girls, organizes mini hockey camps throughout the Nordic region, sells girls’ and women’s hockey clothing and is a hockey expert for SVT. In addition, Maria is CEO of JUSTICE Hockey AB, a company that sells ice hockey sticks adapted to the individual.
The beginning of your career
Maria started her ice hockey career at the age of 5 with the boys of Rögle BK in her hometown of Ängelholm. Rögle gave her an incredible ice hockey education that she benefited from in her adult career, where for a time she was considered one of the top 10 women’s hockey players in the world. Maria played with Rögle until the age of 13 when she started playing for two other teams; with girls in Veddige HK in Halland and with boys in Jonstorp IF. During the five years she played with Veddige she won two Swedish Championship bronze medals. With Jonstorp she played for three years before she changed club again, this time to play with Helsingborg HC J 18/J20 for two years.
The 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan was the first time in history that women’s hockey was included in the Olympic program, as an “exhibition sport”. Maria, who was 19 years old, was selected for the Swedish team that would bring home a medal. Sweden was ranked fifth before the tournament, and came home in fifth place. Sweden lost the decisive match for a semi-final place to China, which many of the players found very disappointing.
After graduation
After graduating from Rönneskolan in Ängelholm, Maria moved to Boston to play with the Assabet Valley Girls Hockey Club for one season (98/99). While there, Maria was approached by a number of different universities who wanted to offer free tuition through a so-called “full scholarship”. After five school visits to Maine, UNH, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota Duluth, she decided to sign for the University of Minnesota Duluth. Maria described it as feeling like “home” and choosing Duluth proved to be a successful decision. Maria earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communications, all while playing world-class ice hockey with the school’s team known as the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs won three consecutive US championships in 2001-2003. As a result of their success, the team was invited to the White House in Washington three years in a row to receive President George W. Bush’s honorary degree. As team captain for the last two seasons, Maria had the honor of presenting the team’s gift of a Bulldog jersey to President Bush.
While at UMD, Maria participated in her second Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002. There, the most defeated Swedish team in history beat Finland 2-1 in the bronze medal match. Just days before Christmas 2001, it was announced that Sweden would be sending the women’s team to the Olympics, but not many people thought they would accomplish anything. Luckily, they believed in themselves and managed to prove that they belonged there.
Time to hang up the skates, and train others
After graduating from Duluth, Maria went back home to Sweden to play hockey with the Limhamn Limeburners, just outside Malmö in the south. She played for both the J 18 and J 2o as well as the women’s team. The women’s team managed to win silver at the 2004 Swedish Championship after losing to AIK in the final.
After the year in Malmö, Maria moved to Stockholm to play with M/B (Mälarhöjden/Bredäng) for two seasons (04/05, 05/06) and they won the Swedish Championship both years.
The 2006 Olympic Games in Italy were Maria’s third. She was instrumental in the historic semi-final win over the USA. In the 25 previous meetings between the two countries, Sweden had not managed to score a single point, with a shot record of 29-187. Sweden won 3-2 after overtime and penalties. Maria scored both goals during the match and the decisive penalty goal that took Sweden to its first ever gold medal match in a World Cup or Olympic Games. Newspapers around the world called the win over the US “The Second Miracle”, the first miracle referring to the US college boys’ win over mighty Russia in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Sweden lost the final 4-1 to the overwhelming favorites Canada. Maria was selected to the All-Star Team and finished the tournament with 8 points (5 goals, 3 assists).
For the 2006/07 season, Maria signed for AIK IF in Stockholm, where she stayed for her last four seasons. The start in AIK was good, they won the European Championship for club teams in December 2006 in Katrineholm. The season ended in the best way with Swedish Championship Gold for AIK and World Championship Bronze with Damkronorna. There were a total of two European Cup titles and two Swedish Championship golds.
Maria retired from skating in March 2010, and soon after became an assistant coach at her former college, the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) in the USA. The head coach at the school at the time was Maria’s old coach, Shannon Miller. According to Maria, there is no better coach, so Maria took the chance to go over to learn as much as possible about what it is like to be a full-time coach. The other assistant coach was Laura Schuler, a former national team player for Canada with an Olympics and a few World Cups under her belt.
In May 2011, Maria decided to go home to Ängelholm and Sweden to start a life at home to develop women’s hockey in Sweden. Today she works as an inspirational speaker throughout the Nordic region. Maria also runs her summer hockey school for girls in Halmstad, which is one of the world’s largest schools with 270 students annually, designs women’s hockey clothing and is an expert commentator for hockey on SVT. She is also CEO of JUSTICE Hockey AB, which sells ice hockey sticks adapted to the individual, you can find the website HERE.
