Born to be a goalie
Bandy is not Sarah Ahlquist Schneider's first goalie rodeo .... she was born to be a goalie.
.... she was born to be a goalie.
In the fall of 2011 Sarah Ahlquist Schneider was recruited into USA Bandy by the then US women's national team goalie Laura Gieselman, ostensibly as her backup for the 2012 Women's Bandy World Championships. However, with Sarah now secure on the US team as the second goalie Gieselman retired. As a result, only months after first stepping onto the big bandy ice in Roseville, Minnesota, Sarah found herself in Irkutsk, the heart of Siberian Russia, guarding the US goal at Trud Arena, with thousands of Russian bandy fanatics filling the stands.
Even though Irkutsk was her international debut Sarah was ready. Goalie coach and former Canadian national team goalie Thom Wynn had been working with her since her first bandy training. Thom could not, however, prepare Sarah for the extreme Siberian cold. The air temperature that first game was close to minus 30, but neither she nor her USA teammates would be impacted by the cold in the electric atmosphere that Trud had become, until after the game was over. The tourney was a success for the USA and for Sarah. An Irkutsk highlight for her was when she and the US beat Norway for 5th place, as she stopped a Norwegian penalty shot that would have tied the game in its waning moments.
After the tourney, upon returning to the US, Sarah considered the incredible experience she and the team had had, both while competing in the games as well as the friendship and culture they experienced off the ice. She definitely wanted to continue playing bandy.
Sarah continued in goal for the US in subsequent bandy world championships: Laappenranta, Finland in 2014, the USA at the Guidant John Rose Oval in 2016 (where she was named outstanding goalie of the tournament), 
Chengde, China in 2018 (played on a frozen lake) and Oslo, Norway in 2020. In January 2022 she will play in her 6th world championship for the USA, this time in Stockholm, Sweden.
In addition to playing goalie for the US women's bandy team, Sarah also plays goalie for the Eagles, a women's team competing in the US men's first division league. When she first joined the Eagles they were losing league games by double digit scores. This began to change and in 2018 the Eagles amazingly won the first division playoff championship, defeating Tsunami 5-4 in a semifinal shootout and East Isles 1-0 in the championship match. Sarah was in the Eagles goal for both games and was named the playoff MVP.
Bandy, however, is not Sarah Ahlquist Schneider's first goalie rodeo. In fact, she has always been a goalie and it would seem she was born to be a goalie. One of her first memories as a child is watching the Minnesota boy's state hockey tourney on television in the early 1980s, pointing at the goalie and telling her parents "I want to do that".
When Sarah first began playing organized sports at the age of 8 there was no girl's hockey in Minnesota. Instead of hockey, the girls of Minnesota played an ice sport called Ringette. She played goalie, of course, but by sixth grade, as an 11 year old, she wanted a higher challenge, so she joined the South St Paul boys youth hockey program. In that first season, 1992-93, she played goalie for the PeeWee B team and as a 13 year old seventh grader made the PeeWee A team, where she had a solid season as her all boys teammates accepted her completely. In the 1994-95 season, when Sarah was in eight grade, the very first Minnesota girl's high school league was formed, capped by a state tournament in February 1995. South St Paul was one of Minnesota's original girls high school teams and Sarah was asked by legendary South St Paul coach Dave Palmquist to be the goalie for the high school team. Instead she chose to stick with the higher level of competition that came with boys hockey and played goalie for the Bantam B team. As a ninth grader she became the number one goalie for the Bantam A team.
In the 1996-97 season Sarah, now a sophomore, finally joined the South St Paul girls high school team. Although she and the team lost to state power Roseville in the section final Sarah had an outstanding year in goal and was named to the Minnesota Girls High School All State team.
But in her eleventh grade year she returned to boys hockey and made the South St Paul boys varsity team, in doing so becoming the first and only girl to ever play for the South St Paul boys varsity hockey team.
1998-99 was Sarah's senior year, her final year of high school hockey and she decided that it would be playing goalie for the girls team again. But, before the hockey season began she finished her high school soccer career for South St Paul, as the goalie, of course.
The 1998-99 girls hockey season was one of triumph and a season ending disappointment for Sarah and South St Paul. After a successful regular season where Sarah's GAA was less than one goal a game, South St Paul met Eagan and Minnesota hockey legend Natalie Darwitz in the section finals, winning 1-0 in overtime to advance to the state tournament, where in the quarterfinals they met Park Center and another Minnesota hockey legend, Krissy Wendell, winning 3-2. Unfortunately South St Paul went down in the state semifinals to Bloomington Jefferson, losing in double overtime on an own goal. Her final high school hockey game was a 3-0 triumph over Duluth in the third place game. For the season Sarah had registered an extraordinary 19 shutouts. She was again named to the All State team.
Hockey was not Sarah's only forte in high school. Her academics were also very strong and she was accepted as a student by Princeton University, which she chose over Yale University, both schools having strong women's D1 hockey programs. As a Princeton freshman Sarah continued to excel in the hockey goal and was named to the All Ivy team. She graduated from Princeton in 2003, a 4 year varsity hockey letter winner. But Princeton and playing D1 college hockey were not to be the end of Sarah's hockey career.
Princeton Tigers goalie ready for action
After graduation she joined the inaugural Minnesota WhiteCaps women's team, playing two full seasons for them. She also became goalie for the perennial Minnesota women's amateur hockey powerhouse, The Blue Js, and has continued as their goalie since the 2004-05 season.
2004-05 Minnesota Whitecaps
Sarah has tended goal for six national amateur champion Blue Js hockey teams, winning titles in 2005(Green Bay), 2007(San Jose), 2009(Rochester, NY), 2010(Green Bay), 2013 (Oakland), 2014(Boston).
Sarah Ahlquist Schenieder's goalie career on ice spans from Ringette to Hockey to Bandy, while also playing soccer goalie. Her hockey career covers the origins of girls high school hockey in Minnesota in the 1990s, where she even played one season for the boy's varsity team. She has performed at the highest level in girls high school hockey, Division 1 college hockey and Women's senior hockey. It is thus not surprising that her husband, Billy Schneider, is also a hockey person, while also being the son of Miracle on Ice skater Buzzy Schneider.
She still enjoys playing hockey goalie but it is the sport of bandy, and playing in the goal while wearing USA across her chest, that she is most passionate about. From standing with her teammates and singing the US national anthem before world championship competitions, to competing against the best bandy players that the countries of Sweden, Russia, Finland, Norway, China, Japan, etc. have to offer, to the hand shake line when each game is over, all the way to forming friendships with the players from these other countries at the final banquet, Sarah knows that she may not have been born to be a bandy goalie but she has definitely succeeded at becoming one.
She is immensely grateful to have been blessed with the extraordinary opportunities that come from bandy.
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