From No. 1 Draft Pick to Hometown Hero, PWHL Star Taylor Heise Is Living the ‘Dream’ (Exclusive)

Taylor Heise is going home.

The professional hockey star is getting ready to drive back to Lake City – a small town about 70 miles southeast of Minneapolis – when she answers the phone for an interview about the new Professional Women’s Hockey League. Heise, 23, is one of 138 players to join the league this season, many of them veterans who never thought a league like this would be possible. For Heise, however, the league came at the perfect time: She graduated last year from the University of Minnesota, where she flourished on the ice for five seasons, amassing 225 points in just 172 games and a slew of awards to boot.

In September, in the inaugural PWHL draft, Heise was the No. 1 pick. 1, chosen by her hometown team: Team Minnesota.

“It was a dream,” Heise tells PEOPLE, about a month into his first pro season. – I can’t explain it any other way.

Like most of her teammates (including Olympic gold medalists Kendall Coyne-Schofield and Kelly Pannek), that dream — of playing the sport she loves professionally — wasn’t sure she could achieve it.

But the newly formed PWHL, backed by financial and sporting powerhouses, promises to allow them to enjoy a long career on the ice. And the fans are ready.

“Usually after a game it takes me two hours to get out of the rink because we’re meeting with everyone and signing things,” Heise says. (And no wonder: Her Minnesota team jumped out to an early lead in the standings with four wins in its first five games. Heise has three goals and two assists in those games.)

Taylor Heise.

Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty

Heise’s autograph is a popular commodity at Xcel Energy Center, where Team Minnesota plays — and where the Lake City native played her high school championship games at Xcel Energy Arena. Since then, she’s racked up awards (including the Patty Kazmaier Award, given to the NCAA’s top female player) and played for Team USA, with plenty of medals, before making the Minnesota team right off the bat.

“All the little kids look up to her,” Coyne-Schofield, a Midwesterner from suburban Chicago, tells PEOPLE. “This is her first year as a professional, and taking on that responsibility of being the first pick in the draft, playing in her hometown, carries a lot of weight. I think he handles it well. She embraces that spotlight and the opportunity to make an impact on and off the ice.”

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If you ask Heise what some of her favorite memories from the first three weeks of the season are, the 5-foot-1 center doesn’t mention her goals or her team’s red-hot start.

He talks about skating around the rink and watching young girls on the other side of the glass — many of whom he recognizes from their years playing in the Minneapolis metro area — playing in a professional women’s hockey game for the first time.

“I keep an eye on everyone’s signs and make sure every kid who wants a turn gets one,” Heise says. “You just never know when something is going to end like this or when your time is up. So I want to take advantage of every moment and make sure I make every moment special, no matter how small it is.”

Everything you need to know about the new professional women’s hockey league

At a recent Minnesota game, a young girl held up a sign thanking the players: “Do this for me,” it said.

At an away game in Ottawa earlier this month, Heise says her mother introduced her to her 6-month-old daughter, who was witnessing her first live sporting event. Heise and the girl took a photo together, and the mother said she would hang it on her daughter’s wall at home.

“If I can help her see that this is a possibility in life…” Heise says, then pauses to find the right words: “I’m beyond happy.”

Taylor Heise.

Ethan Miller/Getty

Heise came from a sports-obsessed family, but their sport was basketball; in fact, Heise’s younger brothers Ryan and Nathan play the sport in college, at different schools in Iowa. in 15,000 basketball games?’ Heise laughs.

Best photos from PWHL opening week

But growing up playing hockey spoke to Heise’s creativity and her independence. No one in her family had played the sport before, so getting better at the game meant relying on herself.

“I started playing in an outdoor rink, and when I started to be 8, 9, and 10 years old, I realized I could do literally anything I wanted out there,” she says. “There was so much room to grow, and skating was fun, but one of the biggest things was that no one in my family ever did it. It was fun for me to grow and learn on my own. I honestly think one of my greatest assets in life is that I came up with it myself and did it and figured it out.” Other hockey parents noticed her talent and would tell Heise’s parents Amy and Tony, “I think your daughter should try this at higher level.” Heise jokes that without the adults in her life pushing her to keep going, “I’d probably be playing basketball somewhere in Iowa.”

Taylor Heise.

Zac BonDurant/Getty

This week, Heise and the Minnesota team are taking a little break from action, so she’s heading back to Red Wing, another town about 25 miles from where she grew up.

It is there at the local ice rink Prairie Island Arena where Heise first learned to skate and shoot. Her old jersey number is also hung on the rafters there, in memory of the hometown hero who turned professional. And that’s where Heise will drive, pull out a bag of bats and do what she did almost every day growing up in Minnesota: play a game of pickup with some local kids, all of whom dream of making big plays in the big moment. This is the first time Heise has returned to the arena since the start of the PWHL season. Maybe now even more young girls will go out skating, and she will welcome them with extra sticks and advice. Last year, when she did that, 100 kids showed up.

“Gender rink, whoever wants to show up, can show up. I don’t mind being alone. It’s always been like that,” she says. “But if people show up, I’m more than happy to hang out with them and play hockey because that’s what’s important to me.”

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Source: HIS Education