The New York Sirens, a solidly New Jersey team despite their name, recently began their second season in the Professional Women’s Ice Hockey League and unlike in their first season, with a full-time home and a proper name.

The Sirens played three different “home” venues and were known simply as New York in their inaugural season. Now, the Sirens play at the Prudential Center in Newark, with players with Jersey roots throughout their roster.

Forward Alex Carpenter is the daughter of Bobby Carpenter, an 18-year NHL veteran who won the 1995 Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils as a player and was part of two other Cup-winning Devils teams as an assistant coach.

“I came to love it on my own,” Alex Carpenter said of ice hockey, insistent that her father never pushed her aggressively toward the sport. “Especially being at the rink all the time, it was a natural thing. Once he saw that I wanted to take it seriously and play in college at the professional ranks, that’s when he stepped in.”

Carpenter has won two silver medals with Team USA hockey at the Winter Olympics, including the 2022 games where the Americans lost to Team Canada. Among the forwards on that Canadian roster was Sarah Fillier, now one of Carpenter’s teammates after the Sirens selected her first overall in last year’s PWHL draft. After a standout career with Princeton, Fillier told NJ Spotlight News that she’s thrilled to continue connecting with fans in New Jersey.

“At the end of our season in Princeton last year, I had a lot of fans come up saying hopefully I was going to get drafted by New York, and they would make the trip down to Prudential Center to watch us. It’s nice to see some familiar faces in the stands, but it’s cool to reach a greater market.”