Color of Hockey: Rauf making impact as Pakistan women's coach in LATAM Cup

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Mariya Rauf, a Yale University junior forward who coached a first-ever women’s team representing Pakistan to a bronze medal at the 2025 Amerigol LATAM Cup.

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. -- Juwairyah Khalid felt sad when she heard her daughter, Zoya Quraishi, lament about the lack of players who look like her in women’s hockey.

“She was like, ‘Oh, I'm a girl, there’s no good girls in hockey, I have nobody to look up to,’” Khalid said. “So then I Googled ‘Pakistani,’ ‘South Asian,’ ‘Women of color in hockey’ and lo and behold, I found Mariya.”

Khalid found a role model for her 12-year-old daughter in Mariya Rauf, a junior forward for Yale University’s NCAA Division I women’s hockey team. She shared videos of Rauf’s games with Zoya and upon learning that Rauf lived nearby in Northern Virgina, arranged a skate with her daughter at a local rink.

“She's an inspiration,” Khalid said. “I can't tell you how thankful I am.”

So is Pakistan’s first-ever women’s hockey team. Rauf coached the team, including Zoya, that won a women’s Division II bronze medal on Wednesday in its first appearance at the Amerigol LATAM Cup. For the 19-year-old from Brambleton, Virginia, coaching the team helps her goal of encouraging more Pakistani girls and women to play hockey.

The tournament that ended on Sunday featured 62 women's, men's and youth teams (with four more exhibition teams) and more than 1,450 players representing 17 countries and territories, including Argentina, Armenia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico.

“When I was younger, I obviously didn't have other girls like me to look up to or talk to about anything,” Rauf said. “But I think for these girls (Pakistan team) to have somebody like me where they can see other girls out there that are like them playing at a high level, I think that's just something that will be great for everyone. It just motivates me to keep going.”Rauf had 11 points (six goals, five assists) in 27 games for Yale last season after she had six assists in 25 games as a freshman.

“She was very effective for us last year,” Yale coach Mark Bolding said. “She's reliable, makes a great first pass, and just a really smart, cerebral player who makes the right play almost every time. We'd love to see her pop off and get 10 to 20 goals, and it's certainly possible.”

Faisal Khan, the father of Pakistan men’s Division III team captain Zaakir Khan, said Rauf is already a celebrity within the Pakistani hockey community.

“Because she's broken a mold that she's gotten farther than the majority of young Pakistani athletes,” Khan said. “She's taken it to such a high level to be able to play D-I, to be able to get into Yale and then to have such humility, humbleness. She’s just a great role model.”

Rauf said followed her older brother into hockey, part of a generation of local youth attracted to the sport by Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin.

“I just started with figure skating," she said. "That was like the only way I could really get on the ice, because I couldn't play hockey. I was just playing mini-sticks with my brother in the basement and just watching all the hockey that I could.”

Rauf started playing organized hockey when her family moved to Oakville, Ontario.

“I moved up to the rep team, and then traveled and then to the rep team, and then we ended up moving back here to Virginia, and then I just kept playing after that,” she said.

She had 97 points (47 goals, 50 assists) in 61 games for the Washington Pride's under-19 girls’ youth hockey team in the nation’s capital in 2021-22, and 40 points (22 goals, 18 assists) in 39 games for the Oakville Jr. Hornets Under-22 AA team in the Ontario Women’s Hockey League in 2022-23.

Kush Sidhu, who helped form the Pride, said Rauf is one of the best players he coached.

“She was very composed, very hard to take the puck away from her,” Sidhu said. “She’s a normal-sized girl playing against a lot of bigger people and in the face of that being able to generate points and lift her team. That’s really separated her from a lot of other kids.”

Rauf said coaching Pakistan at the LATAM Cup was a rewarding experience, though she admitted it took everything she had not to jump over the boards and skate a shift.

“I think coaching is something that I could see myself doing even after I graduate, you know, coaching or somehow being involved in hockey,” she said. “I really do see myself doing that because it just feels fulfilling being able to give back.”