This story is part of our series Climate, Sports, and Recreation, about the impacts of extreme weather chaos on kids’ sports, outdoor activities, and generally enjoying nature.
As Jacquie Pierri took to the ice in Milano Cortina, cheered by childhood friends and family who had flown across the world, she thought of her late father—the man who learned hockey in his 40s from a Hockey for Dummies book so he could play alongside his kids.
“My dad spent so much time building us a backyard rink, and my love of the game started with playing with him and my brother,” says the New Jersey native. “So my Olympic experience was really tied to that relationship and memory.”
Today, as both an Olympian and an environmental engineer, Jacquie is fighting to protect the winters that made those memories possible. Although hockey is her first love, Jacquie also grew up skiing and snowboarding, so she’s watched firsthand as shorter and less predictable winters have reshaped outdoor recreation for an entire generation—and is devoted to doing something to help.
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The road to Milano Cortina
Before representing Italy during the host team’s historic Olympic run last month, Jacquie played hockey professionally in Canada and Europe, and as a Division I athlete at Brown University. When she found out the 2026 Winter Games would be held in Milan, she applied for Italian citizenship—her father was Italian-born—and made it her mission to join the national team to honor her dad, who died of a heart attack while playing hockey. “It’s been a full circle moment, for sure,” she says.
From the rink to environmental work
After graduating from Brown with an engineering degree, Jacquie played for the Calgary Inferno, while working for a natural gas heating distribution company. “Calgary is basically the Texas of Canada—very oil- and gas-centric. I thought I could try to make it more sustainable from the inside out, but I hit a point where progress wasn’t happening,” she says.
That frustration helped push Jacquie to earn her master’s in sustainable energy systems in Europe. She’s also deepened her expertise by working at Living Future—an ambitious international green building organization. To boost her impact, Jacquie joined EcoAthletes, a nonprofit that mobilizes professional and Olympic athletes to use their public platforms to raise awareness and advocate for climate change solutions.
Hockey and climate science collide
During her graduate work, Jacquie’s two worlds unexpectedly converged. She went down a rabbit hole investigating the hidden climate costs of refrigerants. “A lot of the coolants used underneath the ice pad in ice rinks have massively high global warming potential,” she says. Jacquie focused her thesis research on less harmful natural refrigerants pioneered by a Swedish company—and used by several rinks today. “It was a really cool synergy of my two worlds,” she says. “I never expected energy and hockey to overlap in that way!”
Jacquie’s years in the arena and in the classroom make her unique. She understands hockey’s climate challenges from every angle. And she sees opportunities everywhere—from smarter refrigeration systems to cultural shifts. “There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, like roofing material,” Jacquie says. “And there’s so much opportunity for waste heat recovery in arenas.”
Some teams are already taking advantage of these opportunities to lower their environmental impact. Jacquie would love to see more organizations follow the model of the Climate Pledge Arena, for example, home of the Seattle Kraken. “It’s really incredible. They capture all the rainwater from the roof and have a lot of other sustainability initiatives.”
The broader concerns
Jacquie’s climate concerns extend well beyond the mechanics of the rink itself. Take cost. As frozen ponds and lakes disappear, kids have limited to no options to play hockey outside of organized indoor leagues—and keeping those leagues running gets more expensive.
“The finances are really challenging,” Jacquie says. “Overall, the warmer it is outside, the more expensive it is to keep an indoor rink. And cost is already prohibitive for new kids to join the sport. I think that’s really sad and a shame.”
The hyper-competitiveness of youth hockey today adds another layer. Young teens are flying across the country for tournaments, adding considerable climate impact. Jacquie encourages organizers to localize competition as much as possible—better for mental health and better for the planet. “Just make it fun—there’s a lot of value in that.”
Another and perhaps most intractable climate challenge is corporate sponsorship money, which is flowing through hockey at all levels. Big Oil companies are well-known to sponsor national ice hockey leagues and tournaments. “It would be great to see big organizations just say no to fossil fuels,” Jacquie says.
It’s not just energy companies, though. It’s also companies that help prop up the plastics industry. She was recently disappointed that, because of a bottled water company sponsorship, Olympic Village rules made it difficult to use refillable water bottles. “In the last three weeks, I used more plastic bottles than I have in the last three years. Sometimes organizers need to look past the bottom line, but it’s not really how our system is set up,” she says.
Speaking up, even when it’s hard
As Jacquie’s professional hockey career winds down in Italy this year, her sustainability work will continue. She’s grateful for EcoAthletes’ support as she advocates for policies that protect the next generation’s opportunities to fall in love with hockey and other winter sports.
“You open yourself up to criticism, but I think at the end of the day, it’s the right thing to do,” she says.
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