Call Me Crazy: The Story of A.J. Mleczko
Tom and Bambi Mleczko were called crazy because they had the audacity to let their daughter, A.J., play the sport she loved.
In New Canaan, CT., boys put on hockey skates and girls put on figure skates. That was just the way it was.
But while watching her dad coach the local high school and bantam hockey teams, a young A.J. Mleczko became fascinated with the sport. She thought it looked more fun. So, she asked her parents if she could give it a try.
With the support of her parents, Mleczko — outfitted in gear from the lost and found — embarked on what was at times a lonely endeavour.
Through much of her youth career, Mleczko had to change in a girl’s room away from her teammates. She recalls having to wait alone, hunched over on her hockey bag outside the locker room.
She was treated differently by opposing players, whether it was being targeted or not being played hard enough because she was a girl. Many of the parents would hurl sexist comments from the crowd.
Throughout all these challenges, Mleczko continued to persist. This fight is something she gives her younger self a lot of credit for.
“There are all these things that in retrospect, I’m surprised that I wasn’t more discouraged,” Mleczko said. “Having gone through that as a youth hockey player, it certainly gave me a taste of it, so that throughout my life I have that [attitude of] ‘OK, I can do this.’”
Being the only girl on her team, Mleczko knew she was held to a different standard.
“I did feel — and by the way, this translates to my life in broadcasting — that I have to be better than even the average boy when I played hockey,” said Mleczko. “If I was the worst one on the team or even average, it gave people a door to step through and say, ‘she doesn’t belong.’
“I do feel the pressure that being one of the first women to do this, that if I screw up and if I do a bad job, there’s pressure that maybe these networks won’t give these next women a chance,” Mleczko said.
When she first began as an analyst, Mleczko remembers over-preparing out of this fear.
“It’s sort of ridiculous when I think back at the things I was trying to study and memorize and read,” Mleczko said. “That acute anxiety of I’ve got to do a good job has been replaced with that shadow of I have to be prepared and that’s all.”
Mleczko’s work ethic has led her to the pinnacle of sports, whether it is winning a gold medal or broadcasting playoff games as a commentator. Her friend and colleague, Kaitlin Urka, a producer for NBC Sports, admires Mleczko’s competitive edge the most.
“A.J. still has that competitive fire from her gold medal-playing hockey days,” Urka said. “She is as competitive and fierce going about her broadcast as she was on the ice playing in the game. Her attention to detail, the way she is competing with herself to be the best that she can be, the way that she takes coaching and feedback, and all of those things is what sets her apart.”
Mleczko became the first woman to call an NHL playoff game in 2018 between the Predators and the Jets. Her partner that night Chris Cuthbert, a longtime hockey broadcaster whose career spans over 40 years, realized her talent early on.
“From the outset, she brought extensive hockey knowledge, experience, and passion for the game to the booth,” Cuthbert said. “Her Olympic experience established instant credibility with players, and she always came to the booth well prepared.”
Mleczko was part of another historic moment last year when she worked on a Blue-Blackhawks broadcast composed of only women.
The idea came about when Urka received a text from Mleczko reading, “Kaitlin, you can’t stop working in sports.” Mleczko sent this message after taking her daughter to a broadcast truck. Expecting her to be in awe of the equipment, Mleczko’s daughter was instead fixated on the lack of gender diversity asking, “Mom, where are all the women?”
Urka thought it was important to highlight the talented women with whom she works regularly.
Despite wishing the broadcast was not such a big deal because these women do these jobs all the time, Mleczko realizes that that moment was important.
“I understand the value of shining a light on it so that 9, 10, 18, 25-year-olds out there see there is a possibility,” Mleczko said. “That expression if you can see it, you can dream it, you can do it. It speaks to me.”
Mleczko was not able to ‘see it’ as a young girl, but her passion for the game and passion for proving people wrong propelled her forward.
For Mleczko, her life is really driven by what she is passionate about.
“What drives me is where I find my passion,” Mleczko said. “For me, it’s about when I wake up every day, it’s what am I passionate about today? What am I going to do? What is going to give me a purpose?”
