At 15, Chyna Taylor is Already Making History for Team USA
Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Chyna Taylor started figure skating around age 5, following in the footsteps of her older sister.
Taylor’s home ice arena has two sheets of ice, and she saw the other sheet used for something other than figure skating.
“One day, I just saw hockey and I thought it was so cool,” Taylor said. “So, I told my grandpa about it, and he let me switch to hockey.”
She traded in her figure skates for hockey skates at age 6, and in less than a decade she’s become one of the brightest young stars in the country. Taylor, in her third year at Lovell Academy in Rockland, Massachusetts, is fresh off her first international hockey experience, representing the U.S. at the 2025 IIHF Under-18 Women’s World Championship in Vantaa, Finland in January.
Taylor is notable for many things, including being the first hockey player from Kentucky to represent the U.S. at an IIHF event.
When Taylor transitioned to hockey, her skating experience was no doubt helpful while she developed her hockey skills. She started playing alongside boys with the Louisville Ice Cardinals, before transitioning to a more advanced program in Cincinnati. It was there that she and a friend found out about the opportunity to attend Lovell Academy. Taylor moved there when she was 12 years old.
“I adapted really fast with the friends and the environment,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s game has also adapted and improved in her time at Lovell, too. She cites speed as one of her main strengths as a player, along with the calm presence she brings to the ice while making simple plays as a blue liner.
The speed, and how fast she accelerates in her first three steps, is the first thing noticed in Taylor’s game, said Caitrin Lonergan, girls’ director and coach at Lovell.
“Chyna can get the puck flat-footed and then immediately with one or two steps gain advantage on her opponent,” Lonergan said. “Being that quick, she’s constantly able to recover and allow some more risk into her game because of how fast she is. She can take an extra stick-handle or hop up into the play offensively knowing that she’s fast enough to get back.”
Lonergan, who’s worked with Taylor for three years at Lovell, also recognizes the extreme poise and patience the young defender brings to the game. Taylor waits for the forward she’s defending to make the first move so she can react, a skill that is hard to learn and execute at such a young age, Lonergan said.
“At Worlds that’s why she was one of Team USA’s more reliable defenders and someone that played as many minutes as they did. Chyna’s very calm with the puck,” Lonergan said.
“Her presence and her stick and strength is definitely her biggest strength, but the calmness of how poised she plays at 15 years old is unusual and definitely something that I haven’t seen in any other 15-year-olds around the country.”
Taylor was the youngest player for the U.S. team that took home a silver medal at the U18 Women’s World Championship last month. She had two assists in six games.
That tournament was filled with more new experiences for Taylor, as she’d never flown overseas before and she played with new teammates, who are some of the best players in the country. She said she was nervous at the beginning, but those nerves subsided as the trip went on because the team was so supportive.
“While I was there, I definitely learned more about the mental mindset of the game and also recovery and stuff like before practices, after and before games for warmups,” Taylor said. “I learned a lot and what it takes to be a leader.”
Taylor has the potential for a lengthy hockey career. Lonergan has already seen so much change and improvement with Taylor’s game during her time at Lovell. When Taylor arrived, she was an average hockey player — good, but not the best in the country for her age group, Lonergan said.
It’s Taylor’s athleticism that the coach called “insane,” adding that Taylor can pick up on things the first time she’s shown something. If they taught Taylor new skills at Lovell, she took to them with ease rather than a lot of repetition many players would need to master the skill. Having a significant jump in the amount of ice time once she arrived at Lovell helped, too.
“When she started to gain up on the speed and the skills, she’d slowly catch her teammates and then passed her teammates and then passed players in the country who were perceived higher than her,” Lonergan said. “Then got herself to a point where there really wasn’t a defender as good as her anywhere for her age group.
“A lot of that is just her athleticism and how adaptable she is and how she can apply things so fast in games.”
Taylor said it would be a dream to become a leader on the national team, become an Olympian and skate in the PWHL. She has plenty of women who’ve paved the way for her, including Laila Edwards, someone Taylor said she looks up to as a role model as the first Black woman to make the U.S. Women’s National team.
“She’s just representing, especially for Black girls,” Taylor said. “That it’s really cool to do that, and that’s what I want to do as well, to represent as a Black girl who plays hockey.”
That representation is important to Taylor, and she realizes the full-circle significance of looking up to these female hockey players when she was younger, and now there are kids looking up to Taylor.
“I really, truly believe that Chyna’s the future of girls’ hockey,” Lonergan said. “She’s such a great role model.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Black History Month is observed in February and celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.
To learn more about Black History Month visit https://www.blackhistorymonth.gov
Source: usahockey.com