Wally Akervik

2022 Inductee
Wally Akervik was born in Duluth, Minn., and was a four-sport athlete at Duluth Central High School, helping his Trojan team reach the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament.
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Ann Ninnemann

2022 Inductee
Ann Ninnemann was born in St. Paul, Minn., and began playing ringette at the age of four.  By her own admission, she played ringette through the sixth game and then hesitantly transitioned to ice hockey in the seventh grade.

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Pat "Duffy" Dyer

2022 Inductee
Pat “Duffy” Dyer was born in Virginia, Minn., and played youth hockey in that Iron Range community.  After high school, he graduated from UW-Superior with a bachelor’s degree in Medical Technology and would go on to a long career at St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth.
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Rebecca Hamilton-Hildebrandt

2022 Inductee
Rebecca Hamilton-Hildebrandt (or “Coach Becky” as she is better known locally) was born and raised in Sauk Prairie and began playing hockey in 1982, the first year that Sauk Prairie had a hockey association.
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  • Judy Ferwerda - 2021
There can be no discussion about girls hockey and the growth of girls hockey without the subject of Madison native Judy Ferwerda being brought into that discussion.  A person who has interest in any and all athletics, Ferwerda’s dedication to the birth and growth of girls hockey and to the cause of females in sports is legendary.  
 
Ferwerda’s relentless dedication to girls hockey helped jump start the sport at Tier I, and has led the explosion in numbers at Tier II.  She and her husband Dave founded the Wisconsin Challengers in the mid-1990s.  For many girls, the Challengers was their first opportunity to play for an all-girls hockey team.  Prior to that, there were few, if any, opportunities for girls, and those were, for the most part, only on boys teams.  Ultimately, the Challengers would evolve into the Madison Capitols girls program, but, more than that, it would create opportunities for these young women to participate in high school, collegiate Division I and Division III programs, the US National Team and eventually the US Olympic Team.

The journey for Ferwerda and her family was personal and involved a lot of time, energy and resources of their own as girls traveled from all over Wisconsin and the Midwest to practice or compete in Madison in the early days.  As one supporter of her induction put it “”Gas, miles and time became the Ferwerda’s currency, in exchange to create opportunities for us to play the game we love.”

Ferwerda and her husband Dave live in Madison and have two daughters, Jess and Amanda.